P (PLP)

MUHAMMAD MUNIR, C. J.

This is a rule, issued under section 8 of the Letters Patent, requiring Mr. A. K., an Advocate of this Court, to show cause why he should not be found guilty and dismissed or suspended from practice for the following cause "That you have been guilty of professional misconduct inasmuch as you accepted your engagement, and received a part of your fee on 19th April 1949, (and the balance on 5th May 1949 by postal money order), from Jahan Khan, son of Sarfras Khan, Chuhan Rajput, resident of Dhok Sultan, District Jhelum, for the purposes of filing a, revision on his behalf, in the High Court, against the order of Sessions Judge, Jhelum, dated 14th April 1949, acquitting th6 accused Khan Muhammad, son of Malik, of a charge under section 302, Pakistan Penal Code, which engagement you could not accept as :- (a) Such a revision could not be filed against the above-said order of acquittal as the provisions of rule 1-A, Ch. I-A, Part A(b) of the Rules and Orders (Vol. V) of the Lahore High Court, had not been complied with and you deliberately failed to disclose this position to the aforesaid Jahan Khan for the purposes of getting yourself engaged (b) such a revision could not be filed without filing a certified copy of the above-mentioned order of the Sessions Judge, Jhelum. and you having received money from your client Jahan Khan for this purpose, on 19th April 1949, failed to obtain it ; and (c) that you delayed filing the revision and filed it only after the period for filing an appeal under section 417, Criminal Procedure Code, had expired ". The full details of the alleged misconduct are to be found in the affidavit of Jahan Khan on whose application these proceedings were started. Jahan Khan's brother Mardan Khan was murdered in Dhok Suba Dakhli Bhagwal, on 26th October 1948. For this murder, one Khan Muhammad was tried by the Sessions Judge of Jhelum, but the trial ended in acquittal on 14th April 1949. Jahan Khan came to Lahore on 19th April 1949 to file a petition for revision of the order of acquittal when a stranger met him, who told him, that he was the clerk of a top ranking lawyer and took him to the Advocate's house on the Temple Road. He was introduced to Abdul Majid, the Advocate's clerk, who demanded a fee of Rs. 300 and Rs. 20 for the expenses of the copies. Jahan Khan agreed and paid a sum of Rs. 160 against a receipt written by Abdul Majid and promised to send the balance by money order. Out of the amount paid, the Advocate gave a sum of Rs. 30 to the stranger who had brought Jahan Khan to him. The balance of the fee was remitted by money order by Jahan Khan from Post Office Domeli, on 28th April 1949. As Jahan Khan had been assured that everything needful would be done by the Advocate and the result communicated to him, he waited for some months for information, but receiving none, he again came to Lahore on 8th September 1949, met the Advocate and enquired about his case. The Advocate assured Jahan Khan that he was taking the necessary steps and would file the petition for revision after a copy of the judgment of the Sessions judge, for which he had applied, was obtained. The Advocate instructed his clerk Abdul Majid to give a writing to Jahan Khan to the effect that the petition for revision would be filed in the month of October and that the date of hearing will be intimated to him in due course. No information of the case having been received for more than three months after this, Jahan Khan again came to Lahore and gave a copy of the Sessions judge's judgment to the Advocate. Having been informed by some one that it had become too late to file a revision, Jahan Khan again saw the Advocate and claimed refund of the fee, but the Advocate refused to return the money. On this, Jahan Khan presented an application to the High Court complaining of the Advocate's misconduct. The Advocate has filed a written explanation and has also offered himself as his own witness. He says that in the months of April and May 1949 he was suffering from gout and lay in bed. One day his clerk Abdul Majid mentioned this case to him and he directed him to tell the client that his minimum fee would be Rs.

200. Abdul Majid went back to the office and returning shortly afterwards informed him that the client was agreeable, had paid Rs. 40 and would pay the balance of Rs. 160 later. He denies that Jahan Khan was brought to him in his room or that he demanded Rs. 300 as his fee and Rs. 20 as expenses of copies, or that out of the amount received he paid anything to the stranger, or that he knew that any receipt for the money had been issued from his office to Jahan Khan. He alleges that he had asked his clerk to direct Jahan Khan to make an application to the District Magistrate requesting him to move the Provincial Government to appeal against the order of acquittal, and to send to him a copy of the judgment of the Sessions Judge and a copy of the order of the District Magistrate on that application. He admits that he received Rs. 160, the balance of his fee, by money order a few days later, but explains that he did not file the petition for revision, because the requisite copies had not been received and whenever he enquired from his clerk about the copies, he was told that the client had been written to and the copies were expected any day. He denies that Jahan Khan saw him on 8th September 1949 and says that he knows nothing about the writing which Abdul Majid is said to have passed to Jahan Khan on 8th September. He adds that he saw Jahan Khan for the first time when he came to Lahore on 5th October 1949, and when he enquired from him why copies had not been sent by him, Jahan Khan told hire that he had left the expenses of the copies with Abdul Majid, who had promised to obtain them himself. When Abdul Majid was questioned about this, he admitted having received some money on account of the expenses of copies: On this, he directed Abdul Majid to return a sum of Rs. 10 to Jahan Khan to enable him to apply and obtain a copy of the judgment of the Sessions Judge. He also instructed Jahan Khan to apply to the District Magistrate requesting him to move the. Government to file an appeal against the acquittal and send him a copy of the District Magistrate's order if he refused to move the Provincial Government. According to him Jahan Khan came to Lahore with a copy of the Sessions judge's judgment on 20th December, but as regards the copy of the District Magistrate's order, Jahan Khan told him that he had been informed by a pleader that as the District Magistrate had taken no action in the matter; it was no longer necessary to apply to him and that the petition for revision could be put in without the copy of any, such order. He accordingly filed the petition for revision on 22nd December, 1949. After this had been done, Jahan Khan again came to him with a Head Constable, who demanded the return of the fee, but he turned the Head Constable out, because he had no business to poke his nose into the matter. From the Advocate's own admissions and the documents, the genuineness of which is not questioned, the following facts emerge:

(1) That the Advocate accepted the brief without seeing any paper relating to the case and without receiving any instructions from Jahan Khan direct. (2) That he authorised his clerk to receive money from the client in his absence without enquiring from the client as to the amount that he had paid and without himself signing any receipt for the money or taking any steps to ensure that the clerk did not issue a false receipt. (3) That he received his full fee of Rs. 200 within a few days of his engagement. (4) That his clerk received from Jahan Khan a sum of Rs. 36 for the copy of the Sessions judge's judgment and other in cidental expenses. (5) That no application for the copy was made by himself or by hic clerk (6) That Jahan Khan himself applied for and obtained a copy of the judgment of the Sessions judge, on 19th December 1949. (7) That the petition for revision was filed by him on 22nd December without a copy of the District Magistrate's order, (8) That the petition for revision was dismissed on the ground of delay. (9) That either the Advocate or his clerk was responsible for the delay that cost the client at least Rs.

236. The Advocate must well know, as every counsel practicing in this Court should, how petitions for revision of orders of acquittal in murder cases are treated by this Court, and what chances counsel has in such petitions to obtain a retrial, because no order of acquittal can be converted into an order of conviction in revision. I can say from my eight years' experience at the Bench and eighteen years' experience at the Bar, that I have not known of a single instance in which a petition for revision of the order of acquittal in a murder case ever succeeded in the absence of .an appeal by the accused on his being convicted of a minor offence. These being the chances of success of such petitions, it is obvious that it is counsel's duty, before he accepts a brief in any such case, to inform the client what chances of success of the petition are and it is only when the client after being fully advised insists on putting in a petition that counsel would be justified in accepting the brief. Any misrepresentation, express or implied, in the matter is a serious breach of professional ethics, and if counsel accepts any such petition without seeing any paper and without informing the client of the exact legal position, he is obviously guilty of a grave misconduct, and the Court will be entitled to presume that engagement in any such case in the circumstances mentioned is not an honest engagement but a mere device to obtain money from the client on the pretext of professional engagement. And this presumption is strengthened when it is found that counsel not only did not take any step in the matter, but months afterwards took a step that was known by him to be incompetent. In the present case, though the charge is not that the Advocate accepted the brief without looking into the relevant papers, the position stated is relevant to the charge actually framed

viz., that he accepted the brief knowing full well that no petition for revision could be received by the office unless it was accompanied by copy of the District Magistrate's order refusing to move .the Provincial Government to appeal against the acquittal. . Rule 1-A, Chapter 1-A, Part A (b) of the High Court Rules and Orders Vol. V, expressly directs the Deputy Registrar not to receive any petition for revision of an order of acquittal unless it 'is accom panied by a copy of an order of the Magistrate of the. district refusing to move the Provincial Government to appeal uncle section 41,7, Criminal Procedure Code. The reason of the rule is that, if the Provincial Government appeals from the order of acquittal, there remains no occasion for a petition ford revision. If, however, the District Magistrate does not agree to move the Provincial Government to appeal, a revision petition may be put in, and the Court will then consider whether the acquittal presence such a glaring instance of miscarriage of justice that; a retrial, which in such cases is: always a delayed and costly affair, is necessary in the interests of justice. Needless to say that where the Government is not interested and for that reason it has not appealed, this Court will order a retrial only if the case is of such a singularly exceptional character that, unless a retrial is ordered a grave and irremediable injustice must be the result, and such result can be apprehended only where the trial has been contrary to some fundamental rule of procedure or where the acquittal is based on a view of evidence which no reasonable judicial officer, anxious to do justice, could possibly take. This position must be known to every practitioner of this Court, and certainly to a practitioner of the Advocate's standing. Accordingly, when the Advocate accepted the brief in the present case, he must have known that the petition for revision could not be accepted by the office, unless it was accompanied by a copy of the order of the District Magistrate, and since no application to the District Magistrate had till then been made, there was no occasion for him to accept the brief. The obvious course for him, if he intended to give an honest advice to his client, was to inform the client that he could not accept the brief unless the client first applied to the District Magistrate to move the Provincial Government to file an appeal and the District Magistrate refused to recommend such appeal to Government. He should, therefore, have advised his client first to apply to the District Magistrate and come to him only if that officer refused to move in the matter. The Advocate, however, did nothing of the kind. His only concern appears to have been to realize his fee without bothering himself about anything else. In the present case, if the Provincial Government had appealed under section 417 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, there could have been no occasion for the Advocate to appropriate the amount of fee that he actually received in this case, unless the client decided to brief him and paid him this fee merely to watch the proceedings, which then could only be conducted on behalf of the Crown by the Advocate-General or one of his Assistants. We are now told that if that had happened, tamely an appeal by Government had been instituted, the Advocate would have returned the fee to his client unless the client against that fee desired him to watch the proceedings or to assist counsel for the Crown. It is impossible to accept this explanation, because if that had been the mental attitude of the Advocate, he would certainly not have been so anxious to accept the brief and recover his full fee without even seeing a scrap of paper concerning the case and without considering whether the grounds on which the order of acquittal was based by the Sessions Judge, were so stupid or perverse that this Court could not have allowed that Part (a) of the charge alleges that the Advocate was guilty of professional misconduct, because he accepted the brief in this case before the District Magistrate had been moved in the matter and that he deliberately failed to disclose to his client the position that a petition for revision could not be filed unless the District Magistrate had first been moved. I am quite clear that even if the allegation that the correct legal position was deliberately suppressed by the Advocate from the client is not made out, a case of professional misconduct must be held to have been? established against him merely on proof of his having accepted the brief when he knew that no petition for revision could be accepted by the Deputy Registrar, unless the provisions of the rule mentioned above had been complied with. In this view of the matter, it would really not be necessary to go into the question whether the correct legal position had or had not been explained to the client by the Advocate. If, however, we must go into that question, there can on the material before us be no possible doubt that that position was intentionally suppressed by the Advocate from the client. The Advocate states that when he was engaged in this case in April 1949, he had directed his clerk to inform the client that the petition for revision could only be put in if the client first applied to the District Magistrate requesting him t4 move the Provincial Government to appeal against the order of acquittal. That the Advocate did nothing of the kind appears to me to be perfectly clear from the surrounding circumstances. Jahan Khan says in his affidavit that no such advice. was given to him. When the Advocate filed the petition for revision, he said nothing about this in his petition and gave no explanation why the petition had been put in without complying with the previsions of rule 1-A. It was only when the Deputy Registrar refused to accept the petition that the Advocate made the following note on the memorandum:- Under Article 157 of the Indian Limitation Act, an appeal from an order of acquittal lies within six months from the date of order appealed from. The order of acquittal in this case was passed on 14th April 1949, and no steps appear to have been taken by the District Magistrate, Jhelum, with a view to filing an appeal. The petitioner who had to bring to me the copy of order of acquittal only applied for the copy of order of acquittal on 15th December 1949, (long after six months of the order of acquittal), obtained the certified copy on the 19th December 1949, handed the same over to me on the 20th December 1949, for filing a revision petition and the petition was filed on the 22nd December 1949, (the 21st December being a holiday). Under the circumstances, no application now submitted to the District Magistrate, Jhelum, moving the said learned officer to move in the matter of filing an appeal from the order of acquittal, will be entertained. It is, therefore, requested that in the circumstances, the non compliance with the provisions contained in rule No. 1-A (b). Rules and Orders of the High Court, Vol. V may be condoned and the case be put up before an Hon'ble Judge, for orders Refiled." The Deputy Registrar, in view of an earlier ruling in a similar case, refused to place the petition before a judge, for orders on the ground that he could not depart from the rule. Thereafter the Advocate, made another application purporting to be one under section 561-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure repeating what he had said in his note on the memorandum, and asking for orders to dispense with the condition precedent in the rule. The petition for revision together with this application was put up before me and was dismissed as belated. Neither in the noting on the memorandum nor in the application under section 561-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, did tae Advocate say one word about the client's default or negligence in the matter, his position consistently having been that by the expiry of the time for the filing of an appeal by Government, the petition for revision had become maintainable. If the Advocate had really directed his client to apply to the District Magistrate, there must certainly have been some referee--e in his noting or in his application to that fact. Similarly, in his explanation to Jahan Khan's complaint that the Advocate submitted to the Deputy Registrar, no reference is to be found about his alleged instruc tions to the client that he had first to apply to the District Magistrate to move the Government to appeal against acquittal. Abdul Majid says, that Jahan Khan had been taken by him to his master who had advised him to apply to the District Magistrate. But according to the stand taken by the master, he never had any talk with Jahan Khan on that occasion. It is, therefore, impossible for him to rely on this part of Abdul Majid's deposition, and I myself have no doubt whatsoever that Abdul Majid lies when he says that the client was advised to apply to the District Magistrate. The Advocate received a sum of Rs. 200 as his fee in this matter, which is a very good fee. He could not, therefore have possibly forgotten this engagement. He, however, says that though he remembered this case all along, whenever he enquired about it from his clerk, he was told that the client was being communicated with and that the copies of the necessary documents would soon be received. I cannot suppose that the Advocate would have been put off in the manner he alleges by his Clerk for about 8 months, and if this case was really present to his mind, he must surely have examined the position and written to the client himself. He, however, admits that he took no such step, and was throughout satisfied by what Abdul Majid told him and in this way allowed the period for applying to the District Magistrate, to expire. No copy of any correspondence with the client has been produced nor any note on the brief shown to us to indicate what steps were taken in the Advocate's office for the progress of this case. The Advocate maintains a register of cases, but curiously enough this case is not entered in that register, the reason given being that as he was ill in April and May, no entries for these two months have been made. The fraudulent intent in this case is apparent from the very beginning, because in the very receipt -that Abdul Majid passed to Jahan Khan, and we cannot imagine that the Advocate had no knowledge of it, he stated that steps in the matter had begun to be taken from that very moment, and on 8th September when no copy of the Session judge's judgment had been applied for or received, Jahan Khan was given a writing to the effect that the petition for revision would be filed in October. The Advocate seeks to take shelter behind the plea that his clerk Abdul Majid had been consistently defrauding him and the clients and that in this case too whatever documents the clerk gave or wrote to the client were without his knowledge. He has referred in his evidence to two other cases in which the clerk is alleged to have embezzled money. There has admittedly been fraud in those cases but the position taken by the clerk is that in those two cases too, the party at fault was the Advocate himself. It is unnecessary to go into the details of those cases, but if the Advocate wishes to absolve himself from liability in this case on the ground that he is not responsible for what his clerk did or wrote to the client, I cannot do better than to remind him and the other members of the bar of the following observation by a Full Bench of the Madras High Court, in Krishnasawmi Aiyar's case. " The Vakil tells us, in effect ", the Full Bench said, " that these letters were written witten without his knowledge approval. It was suggested that there was nothing unusual in this, if a practice of Vakil's clerks being allowed to write letters on behalf of their masters without their master's knowledge really exists, it seems to us that the practice is altogether unbusiness like. The letter of January 28th, 1910, contains a false statement ...a false statement, as it seems to us made deliberately with a definite object in view. The Vakil cannot protect himself from responsi bility by saying he knew nothing about this letter. We must hold him responsible for it." There is another, and an almost conclusive circumstance, which shows) that Jahan Khan when he first saw the Advocate, was not told that the District Magistrate had to be applied to, and that a copy of his order on the application had to be filed with the petition for revision. Jahan Khan was so much concerned about this case that, though the order of acquittal was passed on- 14th April, he came to Lahore on 19th April, and engaged the Advocate the same day. He paid a part of the fee, all the expenses of the copies and within a few days of his return to his village remitted by money order a sum of Rs. 160, which was the balance of the fee. Again, on 19th December 1949 he applied for copy of the Sessions judge's judgment on urgent fee and obtaining it the same day came to Lahore on the following day. If he had been advised that before a petition for revision could be put in here, for which he had incurred; according to the Advocate himself, an expenditure of a sum in the neighborhood of Rs. 250, the District Magistrate Jhelum, had to be moved to recommend an appeal, we are quite sure that he would have taken that step which was merely a formal step and would not have cost him more than a few rupees. Therefore, the fact that he did not take any such step clearly indicator that he had not been advised to do so. Our attention has been drawn to a cryptic note on the back of the receipt Exhibit P. A. which seems to say that on 25th June 1949, Abdul Majid, clerk to the Advocate, was paid a sum of Rs. 10 to obtain the sanction of the Deputy Commissioner, Jhelum. Abdul Majid denies this note to be in his own hand and says that he never received a sum of Rs. 10 from Jahan Khan on that date. Relying on this note, learned counsel for the Advocate contends that on the date which this note bears Jahan Khan must have been informed that some sort of sanction from the Deputy Commissioner, Jhelum, had to be taken in the matter, and that this sanc tion could mean nothing else except an application to the District Magistrate. . That may be so, but it does not mean that when the Advocate accepted the brief in this case in April, he had properly directed his client to take .a. necessary step. The note, if true, merely shows that Abdul 1VIajid swindled Jahan Khan of another sum of Rs. 10 on a false pretext and not that Jahan Khan had been informed that it was his duty to apply to the District Magistrate. I am, therefore, satisfied that item (a) of the charge is proved. Item (b) of the charge alleges that the Advocate received money for the expenses of the copy of the Sessions judge's judgment, bat made no effort to obtain it. Abdul Majid admits that Jahan Khan paid a sum of Rs. 36 for this purpose, but he alleges at this money was received by the Advocate himself and not by him. He says that the entire amount that he himself received was Rs. 4 as clerk's fee, the rest of the money having all been paid by Jahan Khan direct -to the Advocate. The, Advocate's position on this part of the case base already been stated. He says that Abdul Majid gave him only Rs. 40 and that Jahan Khan was never brought in front of him. The affidavit of Jahan Khan also is to the effect that the Advocate was present when the money was paid. We should not have relied on the state ment of Abdul Majid, but Jahan Khan has no reason falsely to allege anything against the Advocate, and we are sure that unless the amount had been received by the Advocate himself, Jahan Khan would not have said that the Advocate paid a sum of Rs. 30 to the stranger who had brought him to the Advocate's office. Apart from this, there is circumstantial evidence tending unmistakably to show that the amount, which was paid by Jahan Khan, on account of the expenses of the copies, was appropriated by the Advocate, If the Advocate did not know that the amount in question had been paid and was under the impression that the client had to obtain a copy of the judgment, he would surely have written to the client to send him the requisite copy when several months had expired after his engagement, and the chances of a belated petition being entertained were fast disappearing. We cannot accept his explanation that he merely went on reminding his clerk about the matter and did not consider direct communica tion with the client necessary. He says that Jahan Khan came to him on 5th October and that it was then that he came to know that Abdul Majid had taken the fee for the copy from him and that accordingly he directed Abdut Majid to return Rs. 10 to Jahan Khan to enable him to apply for the copy. Abdul Majid denies all this and there-are two circumstances which show quite clearly that the position taken by the Advocate on this part of the charge is not true. First, if Jahan Khan had been advised on 5th October 1949 to apply for a copy, and had been returned a sum of Rs. 10, anxious to have his matter put in the High Court as speedily as possible as he was, he could not have delayed applying for the copy till December

19. Secondly, the story of the return of Rs. 10 seems to have been invented for the reason that the amount of fee for the copy paid by Jahan Khan was exactly Rs. 10, in addition to the urgent fee of Re. 1, and I cannot imagine that the Advocate could have so nicely calculated the fees for the copy that the made Abdul Majid return to Jahan Khan, the precise amount that later turned out to be the actual expenditure. Further, if Jahan Khan had told the Advocate that he paid Rs. 36 for copies to Abdul Majid, he must also have shown to him the receipt for R's. 36 which he must have had with him, because though Jahan Khan seems to be a simpleton, he is quite a methodical client as he has been preserving all papers relating to this case. We do not believe that the Advocate was so ill when he was engaged in this case that a prospective client could not be introduced to him and it is not denied by him that in those days he was appearing in this Court in cases which appeared in the daily list. In the ordinary course, therefore, he could not have left the terms of his engagement to be settled by his clerk, and permitted him to negotiate directly with the client and f to let him pass to the client any kind of document that he liked. A client, who agrees to pay a sum of Rs. 200 to counsel for a revision petition, would certainly demand his being taken to the counsel to be retained and would not accept the clerk's word as to the amount of fee to be paid and the chances of success of the petition. I am, therefore, convinced, that Jahan Khan was taken to the Advocate, and once this fact is found, it becomes plain that the Advocate must have received the fee for the copy or must have known that his clerk had received the amount. If, therefore, no steps were taken by the Advocate to obtain a copy of the judgment for several months until the petition for revision, became hopelessly stale, he was of professional misconduct. Jahan Khan does not say that he came to Lahore in October and the story of his visit in October has obviously been invented in order to allege that before the period of limitation for appeal by Government had experied, Jahan Khan had been personally directed to apply to the District Magistrate and to send a copy of the Sessions judge's judgment. Having made inquiries about his case in September and taken from Abdul Majid a writing that the date of hearing would be communicated to him in due course after the petition for revision was filed in October, there was no point in Jahan Khan's coming to Lahore on the 5th of October, and if the allegation as to this visit is rejected, it becomes clear that the Advocate never gave any instructions to Jahan Khan to apply to the District Magistrate before an appeal by Government had become barred by time or to send him a copy of the Sessions judge's judgment. Thus the omission on the part of the Advocate to write directly to the client to supply him with a copy of the Sessions judge's judgment can only be attributed to a consciousness of the fact that the client had already paid for the copy. It must accordingly be held that item (b) of the, charge is proved. Item (c) of the charge alleges misconduct on the part of the Advocate inasmuch as he delayed filing the petition for revision and did not actually file it till the period of limitation for filing the appeal under section 417 of the Code of Criminal Procedure had expired. What this part of the charge implies is that a petition for revision could not be received by the office and, therefore, could not be entertained by this Court, unless it was accompanied by a copy of the District Magistrate's order refusing to move the Provincial Government to file an appeal against the order of acquittal and that since such appeal had become time barred when the Advocate filed the petition for revision, the petition had become incompetent on the ground of delay. To put it more concisely, the gravamen of the charge under this item is that the petition was filed by the Advocate when he must have known that it had become incompetent and could not be enter tained by the Court. I have already pointed out that the Advocate first put in the petition for revision on 22nd December 1949 with out referring to the flaw the petition suffered from and, when the office pointed out that it could not be entertained, he put in of another application on 20th January 1950 asking for relaxation another the rule which requires such petitions to be accompanied by a copy of the District Magistrate's order. When these petitions came up before me, I dismissed the revision petition by the following order :- As the period for filing the appeal has expired, there is no point in moving the D. M., now. The petition for revision is therefore belated and I do not see any reason to interfere. Dismissed. What I meant by this order was that by reason of the appeal by Government having become time-barred, it had become impossible for the petitioner to comply with the rule, according to which no such petition could be accepted by the office unless it was accompanied by a copy of the District Magistrate's order, and that, therefore, the petition by this long delay had become incompetent and I myself saw no reason to interfere ex debito justitiae. I have-not the slightest doubt that when this petition was put in, the Advocate knew very well that there was no earthly chance of its being entertained by the Court and that he filed it merely in order to show to his client that he had acted in the matter and had, therefore, earned his fee. Now if the Advocate's engagement was conditional, as he says it was, the proper course for him was to have advised the client that as the condition precedent for his engagement had not been fulfilled, namely, refusal by the District Magistrate to move in the matter, the petition for revision could not then be entertained by the Court and that the client had the option of taking back the money unless, despite the defect from which the petition suffered, he required him to file it. I am quite sure that, if this position had been explained to the client, he would not have wasted his money, assuming that he himself was at fault in not applying to the District Magistrate and supplying the Advocate with a copy of that order. That he would have acted in that manner is perfectly clear from the demand that he made for the refund of his money immediately after the petition was put in. I have tried to make it clear that the Advocate could not have accepted the brief in this case, without a copy of the District Magistrate's order. Unless, therefore, the step of moving the District Magis trate had been taken, there was no occasion for an engagement for a petition for revision. That-being the position, the Advocate could not have, unless his client had expressly agreed to this course, putting the petition for revision, without a copy of the District Magistrate's order. The Advocate alleges that the rule, which requires the party filing a petition for revision of an order of acquittal to produce a copy of the District Magistrate's order, was not being strictly enforced and that petitions for revision were generally being filed in violation of that rule. There is no warrant for this allegation, as the nothing on this very case shows that long before the present occasion, I had held the rule to be manda tory and no petition for revision had ever been accepted by the Deputy Registrar without such copy. It may, be though I am not aware of it, that counsel might have obtained in some cases a special order from a judge dispensing with the copy of the District Magistrate's order, but that would not justify counsel to accept briefs in such cases, unless the incompetency of the petition had been made clear to the client and despite that the client had authorised counsel to take his chance. This item of the charge also is therefore proved. The misconduct proved in this case is of a very serious character, but, since it is the first case of its kind, since the Parti tion and we do not wish to be unnecessarily harsh and hope that this would be the last instance of relapse by him, we suspend Mr. Abdul Karim from practice for a period of one year. If within this period Mr. Abdul Karim returns a sum of Rs. 236 to Jahan Khan, he may make an application supported by the necessary documentary evidence of payment, for reconsideration of the period of suspension. The Crown Counsel's fee shall be paid by Mr. Abdul Karim. MUHAMMAD SHARIF, J.

I agree. M. SOOFI, J.

I agree. MUHAMMAD MUNIR, C. J.-Announced. A. H. Suspension ordered