P L D 1971 Supreme Court 585 (PLP)

This sale was made within a period of 2 years of the import of the said car and was in violation of the conditions of the import permit thereof. His conduct in respect of the transac tion was in violation of law and was not proper and befitting a Judge of the High Court. In the alternative, he abetted his wife in the sale of the said car in violation of law". The Attorney-General has contended that this car was imported in the name of the respondent's wife who, even up to this date, according to the admission of the respondent himself, is still retaining her German nationality. This admission was made by the respondent on the 25th of January 1971, when he was called upon to produce his wife's passport. He then stated that he does not dispute that his wife continues to be a German national with permanent domicile in Pakistan (page 88 of the record of evidence). The Attorney-General points out that if this is so then under paragraph 3.342 of the Import Manual (page 44) a foreign national could not sell a car imported by her or him to a Pakistani noational at all. This car, which was imported under a permit granted on the 23rd of March 1965, was disclosed in the declaration of assets filed by the respondent to have been disposed of in March or April 1966, but this, as now pointed out in paragraph 37 of his written statement, was a typographical error. It should have been March or April 1967. Again since the charge relating to the illegal acquisition of foreign exchange has been given up and we have no evidence to show that the car was not acquired by the respondent's wife out of her own assets in Germany we are now only concerned with the question as to whether the car was illegally disposed of. Mr. Manzur Qadir has relied strongly on the conditions set out in the Permit itself (Exh. PG-126). According to Mr. Manzur Qadir, the rules contained in the Import Manual do not have the force of law. They are merely administrative instructions and it is possible for the departmental authorities to waive one or the other of the said conditions. Thus if the prohibition against transfer is not repeated in the permit itself then it must be taken that it has been waived. There is no evidence, apart from his own admission in the declaration of assets, that the car has been sold to a resident of Abbottabad in March/April 1966 (subsequently corrected as 1967). The only evidence we have is an intimation of the payment of the road, tax in respect of this car in a district other than the one fn which the vehicle was registered. Exh. PG-111 only shows that one, Haji Lal Khan, paid the road tax i a respect of this car for the last quarter of the year 1966-67 in Hazara district. Exhs. PG-112 and PG-113 also are similar documents showing payment of tax by Haji Lal Khan for the first quarter 1969-70 and the 4th quarter 1968-69 in Hazara district. This by itself does not establish that the car was sold to Haji Lal Khan, for, it does not exclude the possibility of the tax having been paid on behalf of the recorded owner by some one else. It may well be that the car is still registered in the name of the foreign importer, namely, the respondent's wife, though being used by someone else for a consideration. Be that as it may, the involvement of the respondent in this transaction is that he, on his own admission, paid the duty for this car and has treated the "sale-proceeds" of this car as his own assets as also at one stage attested the application of his wife for a permit. The attestation has now been proved to be the same as was then accepted by the customs authorities as the standard trade import price. For this purpose a specific charge was separa tely framed, namely, charge No. 7, but this charge has now been dropped. It may be that since he paid the taxes, he also retained the sale-proceeds or he might have appropriated the same with the consent of his wife. These facts do not, however, establish abetment of the transfer. No evidence has been led to show that respondent took any active part in negotiating this transfer. We are in agreement, therefore, with Mr. Manzur Qadir that this charge bas not been brought home to the respondent. We, accordingly, give the respondent the benefit of the doubt, so far R as this charge is concerned but would like to make it clear that we do not accept the contention that the rules in the Import Manual do not have the force of law. Charge No. 7 is to the following effect:-- "Article of Charge No.

7. That on or about 21-12-1966, he knowingly attested, as a Judge of the High Court, an incorrect declaration by his wife that the price of Mercedes Benz Car, Type 200, Sedan Model, 1966, with accessories, imported from West Germanys was Rs. 10,132 although value thereof was in excess of Rs. 12,000,

00. The said declaration and the attestation by him enabled the release of the car in violation of law. His aforesaid conduct was not proper and befitting a Judge of the High Court." This charge too has not been pressed by the Attorney-General on the ground that the evidence now on the record seems to indicate that the customs department accepted that the import price for the purposes of assessment of customs duty on a Mercedes Benz Car, Type 190/200, was between Rs. 10,500 and Rs. 11,000 as certified by Messrs Shahnawaz Ltd., vide Exh. DG-8. The evidence of Mr. Waliullah (D. W. 18), Secretary of Messrs Shahnawaz Ltd., Karachi, discloses that for purposes of import duty the assessable value of a Mercedes Benz Car of this type was always taken at the amount certified as the net distributors' price by Messrs Shahnawaz Ltd., and this was below Rs. 11,

000. In this view of the matter, this charge too could not be proved and the learned Attorney-General acted rightly in giving it up. The Eighth Charge We now come to Charge No.

8. This charge is as follows:- "That his first wife, Mst. Zabida Sultana had filed Suit No. 36/68, against him. The said litigation was coming in his way in his confirmation as a Judge and with a view to over come this hurdle on or about 29-1-1968, he entered into com promise with the said Mst. Zahida Sultana, whereafter he was confirmed on 13-5-1968. The terms of compromise, inter alia were as follows: (i) A sum of Rs. 1,00,000.00 was to be deposited in a Bank by the respondent in the name of his children. (ii) The respondent undertook to deposit within 6 months a further sum of Rs. 1,10,000.00 and to pay Rs. 22,000.00 on account of arrears of maintenance for his children from 1-5-1964 to 31-12-1967. In default of making the deposit he was to pay maintenance for the children at the rate of Rs. 400.00 per month. He did not, however, honour the said compromise solemnly entered into by him and failed to fulfill the undertakings mentioned in (ii) above, which led to exchange of legal notices and would have caused further litigation. It seems, that the said compromise was merely a ruse to secure confirmation and that he attaches no sanctity to his pledged words. That his conduct in not honouring the commitments under the said com promise was not befitting a Judge." The gravamen of this charge is that the compromise (Exh. PG-75) entered into between the respondent and his first wife Zahida Sultana on 29-1-1968 to put an end to the litigation pending between them at that time was merely a ruse to secure his confirmation as a Judge of the High Court of West Pakistan for, he had no intention to honour the commitments under the said compromise. It is charged that he attaches no sanctity to his pledged words' and the manner in which he has failed to honour his commitments S under the said compromise is not in keeping with the degree of propriety required of a Judge under Articles II and III of the Code of Conduct. He married his first wife on the 5th of April 1959. Soon after this a house on The Mall, No. 101, which was an evacuee property was transferred to the lather-in-law of the respondent, Mian Abdus Salam (P. W. 11) by a provisional transfer order, dated the 29th of October 1959. The house was valued by the Settlement Authorities at Rs. 96,

000. This amount was not covered by the verified claim of Mian Abdus Salam under his compensation book No. 7722-LHR-1-139. The balance was there fore, made up by payment in cash of Rs. 19,218.12 on the 15th of February 1960 (vide Exh. DF-14) and by purchase of the deferred claim of one Lt.-Col. Aftab Ahmad up to the extent of Rs. 50,510 for Rs. 31,

821. After the transfer of the house the respondent and his first wife took up their residence there and the respondent claims that on the 9th of May 1960, his father-in-law actually leased out the entire premises jointly to him and his wife at a rental of Rs. 250 per month for a term of 99 years (vide photostat copy Exh. DE-1). The father-in-law, Mian Abdus Salam, however, maintains that this document was never got registered or given effect to as it was cancelled. In any event it had no legal effect as it was never got registered. The latter version appears to be more consistent with the subsequent dealings of the parties with this property, for, we find that on the l0th of February 1962, Mian Abdus Salam (P. W. 11) executed two deeds (Exhs. DE-2 and DE-4). By the first he gifted half of the property, 101, The Mall, Lahore, to his daughter, Zahida Sultana and by the other he conveyed the other half to the respondent for the price of Rs. 48,

000. There is no mention of the lease of the 9th of May 1960, in either of these documents. If there had been such a lease subsisting the gift to the daughter, at any rate, would have been subject to the lease. It further appears that Mst. Zahida Sultana in her turn again sold the half share gifted to her by her father to one Ch. Manzoor Ilahi, a brother of Ch. Zahoor Ilahi, for Rs. 5,14,739 in June 1965 (vide Exh. DE-6). In this document too there is no mention of the lease deed and the property has been sold free from all encumbrances. If there was such a lease subsisting then it is unlikely that a legally trained person like the respondent would have kept quiet. There is no evidence that he ever sought to assert his alleged lease-hold right on the other portion. We .are inclined, therefore, to accept the version of Mian Abdus Salam that the lease deed (Exh. DE-1) was never given effect to. The transference of the half share of this valuable property to the respondent for the insignificant amount of Rs. 48,000 evidently was in consideration of his marriage with the transferor's daughter and to improve his marital relations with Mst. Zahida Sultana, for, even from before that time the respondent was, as pointed out by the learned Attorney-General, already exploring possibilities of marriage with a European lady as will appear from letters (Exhs. PG-79, PG-80 and PG-81), which indicate that he had actually proposed marriage to a lady, called Ursula. The latter, however, by her letter of the 20th of October 1960 (Exh. PG-81), finally turned down the offer and even asked the respondent not to write to her. It is unnecessary to go into the other letters which have been brought on the record. We are not concerned with his amorous escapades except in so far as they reflect upon his moral character but it seems that the respondent is not a person who is above marital infidelity or is deterred by the fact that he is already lawfully married to one person from pursuing his quest for others or even having affairs with others. In March 1961, he started correspondence with his present wife (vide Exh. PG-89) and before the 9th of May 1961, actually proposed marriage to her. She accepted this proposal and asked him to send the marriage deed for her signature to Germany by her letter of the 9th of May 1961 (vide Exh. PG-91). His infidelity, however, came to the knowledge of his wife but he managed to assuage her by executing a document, dated the 28th of December 1963 (Exh. PH-75/1), whereby he assured and undertook not to divorce her and promised further that in case he remarried, the half share given to him in premises No. 101, The Mall, Lahore, would go to his children out of her womb and the agricultural lands purchased at Qila Rai Singh, district Gujranwala, would be given back to her in settlement of her dower claim of Rs. 40,

000. The case of the respondent is that this document was torn up immediately after it was signed. This evidence has been brought on the record through the mouth of one, Khan Bashir Perwaiz (D. W. 8). This witness stated that this was torn up at the spur of the moment and when asked to describe the manner in which it was torn up, he said that it was first folded four/five times and then it was torn into two /three pieces and also gave a physical demonstration. It was then put to him by the Council that if that was so, then the document would have been torn into fifteen or more pieces. Realising that the falsity of his assertion had been exposed he immediately modified his answer and stated that "it was folded, re-opened and then torn". This again is clearly false, for, the document (Exh. PH-75/1) appears to be pasted only in two places, in the middle and just below the signatures of the parties. It looks as if this pasting was done just to keep the document together at places where it was getting worn-out at the creases caused possibly by repeated folding. This document does not appear to have been torn at all, nor torn in a manner that it would be destroyed, for, then the line of tear would have been irregular and uneven. We cannot, therefore, accept the evidence of Khan Bashir Perwaiz who admittedly worked as a junior of the respondent from 4th September 1958 till his elevation to the Bench. This witness's story that The Mall house was procured out of the personal funds of the respondent at the payment of Rs. 19,700 under challan (Exh. DF-14) and the payment for purchasing the deferred claim of Rs. 50,510 for Rs. 31,821 were all made out of the personal funds of the respondent, cannot also be accepted as true. All that he said is that the money was handed over to him by the respondent but he was unable to say from where the respondent himself procured the money. It was not drawn from any bank. The respondent also did not adduce any evidence to establish the source from which these large sums were drawn. It is quite possible, as maintained by Mian Abdus Salam (P. W. 11), that the money was made over by him to the respondent for payment to the appropriate department or party, as the respondent, who was then a lawyer, was attending to these things on behalf of his father-in-law. It is in this background that we were asked by the Attorney General to judge the sincerity of the intentions of the respondent to fulfill the terms of the compromise which is the subject-matter of this charge. It is suggested that as soon as he got the half share of the house in 1962, he started looking for a European wife and actually divorced his first wife on the 28th of August 1964, and lost no time in marrying his present wife, with whom the negotia tions had already been finalised, at Lahore on the 10th of October 1964. It is not surprising; therefore, that the former wife should have, in these circumstances, filed a suit against the respondent on the 8th of February 1965, in the Court of the Senior Civil Judge, Lahore, for a declaration that she was the owner-in: possession of the half portion of the premises No. 101, The Mall, Lahore, which was in February 1962, conveyed by her father, to her husband, the respondent, practically a song in order to bring about cordial relationship and prevent the marriage being wrecked. This suit, which was later transferred to the High Court, was pending at the time the respondent's name was recommended by the High Court for appointment as an Additional Judge, but the then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court did not support the recommendation on the ground that he was then involved in litigation which might well lead to a scandal. In his letter of the 2nd of October 1965 (Exh. C. 3), to the Secretary, Ministry of Law and Parliamentary Affairs, the learned Chief Justice pointed out that, "he (the respondent) is known to be involved in contentious and it seems, unpleasant litigation in the Courts at Lahore, with the family of his divorced wife; then followed it up by a brief mention of the types of litigation pending against him and ended with the conclusion that "it is most undesirable that a person who is involved in litigation should be elevated to a superior judgeship" Notwithstanding this the respondent was appointed as an Additional Judge of the High Court on the 25th of November 1965 but Chief Justice A. R. Cornelius on the 31st of May 1967, still felt the necessity of drawing the attention of the Government to the fact that the suit filed by the respondent's former wife, which had since been transferred to the High Court for trial, was likely to create a scandal, as the former wife had, !n her possession a large number of the respondent's love letters which she intended to produce in Court. This, he opined, would "create a most invidious position" if another Judge of the High Court were to sit to try allegations against a brother Judge with regard to the latter's marital infidelity, general looseness of behaviour with foreign women, breach of promises made in writing and otherwise and the denial of an agreement purported to be signed by him." Such litigation was bound, the Chief Justice thought, to bring up the whole moral character of the respondent for judicial scrutiny. Then again on the 5th of October 1967 when the matter of the respondent's confirmation came up, the learned Chief Justice still felt that he could not "conscientiously recommend the further retention of Mr. Justice Shaukat Ali on the Bench", because of the matters to which he had already alluded in his previous letters. He also felt com pelled to record that it was not possible for him "to entertain the slightest confidence in the integrity of Mr. Justice Shaukat Ali". As a consequence of his strong objection the then Government had to defer the respondent's confirmation by a period of six months and it was only after this that ultimately, through the intervention of several other learned Judges of the High Court and some senior lawyers the compromise (Exh. PG-75) of the 29th of January 1968, was arrived at. By this compromise the ex-wife agreed to retransfer the three killas of agricultural land situated at Qila Rai Singh which had been given to her on the 28th of December 1963, under Exh. No. PH-75/1, which Khan Bashir P4rwaiz Khan (D. W. 8) said had been torn to pieces, in settlement of her dower claim of Rs. 0,

000. She also agreed to transfer the 4th square of this land on payment of Rs. 15,000 in cash and gave up her claim to the half share of premises No. 101, The Mall Lahore, at present valued at more than Rs. 5,00,

000. The respondent, in consideration of this, agreed to deposit in the Bank of America a total sum of Rs. 2,10,000 by way of fixed deposits in the names of his three children from his former wife. Out of this amount, Rs. 1,00,000 had to be paid immediately and the balance amount of Rs. 1,10,000 was made payable within six months. During this period of six months allowed for the deposit of the sum of Rs. 1,10,000, the respondent agreed to pay Rs. 400 per month towards the maintenance of the children, and also to pay a sum of Rs. 22,000 as arrears of maintenance from 1-5-1964 to 31-12-1967 at the rate of Rs. 500 per month. The interest accruing on these fixed deposits of Rs. 2,10,000 was to be paid by the end of each month to the respondent's former wife to meet the maintenance and education expenses of the children whose custody during minority was also given to the mother. This settlement was without prejudice to the rights of the children to inherit from the respondent. The fixed deposit receipts, after the deposits had been made, were, according to this agreement, to be filed in the Court and were to remain on the file of the suit until the children attained majority when they were to be made over to them by the Court. In pursuance to this agreement the respondent deposited a sum of Rs. 1,00,000 in three fixed deposit accounts in the names of his three children with the Bank of America (vide Exh. DF-11), paid the sums of Rs. 40,000 and Rs. 15,000 for the four squares of land !n Qila Rai Singh, as also paid the arrears of maintenance amounting to Rs. 22,

030. The period during which he was required to pay the balance was to expire on the 29th of June 1963, but his confirmation fell due on the 25th of May 1968. The Chief Justice of the High Court recommended his confirmation pointing out that the objection raised by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to the confirmation, on the ground of the respon dent's involvement in contentious litigation in the Courts in Lahore with the family of his divorced wife, no longer existed, as the litigation had since been compromised. Mr. Justice S. A. Rehman who had, in the meantime, taken over as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, in his letter of the 17th of April 1968, agreed with the High Court that the "hurdle", which hithertofore stood in the way of the confirmation of the respondent, namely, the litigation, "may be said to have been removed from the way", yet he felt the necessity of drawing the attention of the Government to another matter which badly reflected on the respondent's "calibie and character". This concerned an allegation against the respondent that he had been a party to marshalling false and perjured evidence in support of a case in which he was appearing as an Advocate for the Deputy Commissioner and Superintendent of Police, Jhang, in the High Court. The Chief Justice was of the opinion that the evidence so alleged to have been led "bore the stamp of falsity". In this case Mr, Manzur Qadir who now appears for the respondent, appeared for the opposite-party and the learned chief Justice in his letter:- Chief Justice recorded in his letter :-; "The impression gained by Mr. Manzur Qadir whom I have consulted was that Mr. Shaukat Ali, if not involved in the suborning of that evidence, had, at least, connived at it and an application was actually going to be moved against Mr. Shaukat Ali for professional misconduct in that behalf." The affair was dropped due to the intervention of some persons in view of the "impending appointment of Mr. Shaukat Ali as a Judge". His own conclusion with regard to this matter was that "it is highly unlikely that a counsel of the experience and standing of Mr. Shaukat Ali could have remained ignorant of the real nature of the evidence adduced on behalf of his clients and his failure to dissociate himself from such a questionable case, betokens a trait of character such as could raise disquieting doubts about his suitability for the high and responsible office of a superior Court Judge'. The respondent was, nevertheless, con firmed with effect from the 25th of May 1968. But after his confirmation, it is alleged, he treated the compromise with his wife as of no consequence and did not comply with the remaining portions of it which he had to fulfill, as earlier pointed out, in June 1968. The contention of the learned Attorney-General is that; as manifested by the recommendation of the High Court itself; it was well known in the High Court that it was the litigation with his former wife which had become a hurdle in the way of his confirmation and it was for this reason that several learned Judges of the High Court intervened in the matter and a settle ment was brought about through the good offices of Mr. Justice Muhammad Akram at his house, for removing the "hurdle' in the way of a brother judge. As soon, however, as the hurdle was removed and the respondent was confirmed he felt that his objective had been achieved and that he need not comply with the rest of the compromise. This, according to the Attorney General, was the real intention of the respondent and, there fore, this was nothing but a ruse to secure the confirmation in keeping with his past conduct, so far as his dealings with his ex-wife were concerned. He attached, it is charged, not the slightest sanctity to his pledged words. After he got the half share of the house from his father-in-law he did not hesitate to divorce his wife, -even, though he had given an assurance that he would not divorce her, and as soon as the compromise was effected and he got his confirmation he chose to disregard the terms of the compromise, even though by doing so he was acting unfairly towards his own children, for, it is they alone who were going to be deprived of the interest which would have accrued on this amount. On behalf of the respondent Mr. Manzur Qadir studiously avoided referring to the past history and the correspondence relating to the respondent's confirmation which had been produced by the Attorney-General on the respondent's own request and copies of which had been supplied to him but made an attempt to show that the compromise was not of his seeking. In support of this contention he referred to the evidence of Ch. Ijaz Ahmad (D. W. 21), a club friend of the respondent. The latter claimed that he knew Mst. Zahida Sultana since his childhood days as she was a frequent visitor to his parent's house. He is the son of Ch. Niaz Ahmad, who was in 1964 the Home Secretary to the West Pakistan Government and Mst. Zabida Sultana, according to him, often approached his father for assistance, as she was then complaining of being harassed by the respondent, who allegedly in collusion with the local Police was getting false criminal cases registered against her. His father then used to help her in these matters. By 1968 he claims that he had also come to know the respondent very well through the Punjab Club and it was in the winter of 1968 that, according to this witness, Mst. Zahida Sultana came to their house and told his mother that she had come to pursue her case in the High Court. His mother advised Mst. Zahida Sultana to settle the dispute by negotiation and asked the witness if he could help in that behalf. He then took his mother to the residence of the respondent and asked him to settle the dispute. The latter readily agreed, because having become a Judge he did not want to enter into any sort of litigation either with his former wife or anybody else. Later it was decided that he should ring up the respondent and ask him to go to Justice Muhammad Akram's house the next day. The evidence of Ch. Ijaz Ahmad appears to us to be wholly unconvincing. It seems hardly likely that of all persons he should be selected to approach the respondent for the compromise, and yet be left out of the actual negotiations altogether. In 1968 Mst. Zahida Sultana was, according to this witness, residing at Karachi where she had started some kind of business of her own and there was no question, at this stage, of her being harassed in any manner by the respondent. Her suit had nothing to do with her divorce. She was actually claiming a declaration in the suit on the basis of a written undertaking given by the respondent. Why then should she have been anxious to be little the dispute. The anxiety, if any, would have been on the part of the respondent, as his confirmation had been deferred on account of this litigation. This fact must have been known to Mst. Zahida Sultana also. In these circumstances Mst. Zahida Sultana had the whip-hand over the respondent and we find it difficult to accept the evidence of this witness that it was she who was anxious to have the matter compromised. This witness was obviously not telling the truth when he said that it was at the suggestion of his mother that talks of compromise were started. We have formed a very poor impression of the veracity of this witness. His story not only with regard to this compromise but also with regard to the subsequent extension of time said to have been granted by Zahida Sultana to the respondent for meeting his outstanding obligations under the compromise, is, to say the least, far from the truth. The inherent evidence of the contents of the deed of compromise itself (Exh. PG-75) seems to indicate that Mst. Zahida Sultana was the party who was being induced to withdraw the suit and to remove the hurdle standing in the way of the confirmation of the respondent. Mr. Manzur Qadir has, however, suggested that, in any event, this matter cannot be reopened by the appointing authority nor can the respondent be charged on this account, because, the appointing authority is now estopped from raising these questions after his attention had been pointedly drawn to them by two successive Chief Justices of the Supreme Court. The appointing authority acted with full knowledge of these facts and, therefore, after he confirmed the respondent, he was estopped from challenging the propriety of the appointment and/or confirmation or raising these past matters against the respondent at this stage as a ground for his removal. It has to be pointed out, that no question of estoppel arises here, for, the respondent is not being charged for his past misbehaviours. The charge here is that he entered into this compromise with a dishonest motive in order to delude the authorities into confirming him and then as soon as be was confirmed, he resiled from his solemn undertakings and failed to honour them. The charge here, therefore, relates to the subsequent conduct of the respondent in dishonouring his com mitments after securing his confirmation. It cannot be said that the appointing authority was even at that time aware of his intentions or of the fact that after he had been confirmed, he would resile from his solemn undertakings. It cannot, therefore be said that any question of estoppel arises here. The next contention of Mr. Manzur Qadir is that there has been no intentional failure on the part of the respondent to honour his commitments, but it was rather a case of mere postponement of his commitments due to his inability to per form the same within the time stipulated. In support of this contention, strong reliance has been placed upon the fact that subsequently when the gravity of this matter was pointed out to him by the then Chief Justice of the High Court of West Pakistan in May 1970, he immediately complied with it by depositing a further amount of Rs. 1,10,000 with the Bank of America on the 6th of May 1970, vide Exh. DF-11/2. It may here be worth mentioning that the respondent's own case, as set out in his written statement (paragraphs 48 to 52), was that this was not a case of a ruse at all on his part but actually a case of pressure tactics on the part of his ex-wife, Mst. Zahida Sultana. On his part he was so anxious to discharge his obligations that even though he had "already drawn as much as was possible on his available cash resources", he actually advertised for the sale of his half share of premises No. 101, The Mall, Lahore. But he found that the sale could not go through, as on physical verification it transpired that his wife had unlawfully taken about 2 kanals and 15 marlas of land in excess of what she was entitled to in her half share. He was, therefore, entitled to claim that his liability to pay the balance of Rs. 1,10,000 could "be set off against the area unlawfully taken by Mst. Zabida Sultana." He claims that he was also misled into thinking that she had extended the time for payment, as she did not take any steps until the expiry of nearly 15 months after the date of payment which was provided in the agreement. She served upon him a notice, dated the 9th of April 1969, demanding fulfillment of the remaining conditions. He has suggested that this delay in meeting the demand was Indicative of her willingness to postpone the implementation of the agreement, but me find that in his reply to this notice he, by his letter of the 14th of April 1969 (Exh. PH-18), asked for a further period of two years to enable him to make the deposit but, in the same breath, threatened that "in case she still insisted on going to Court then the only course left to him would be to ask for easy instalments". It will be noticed that there is nothing in this letter about any alleged encroachment of excess lands although the advertise ments for the sale of the property were issued in February 1968, and the alleged encroachment must have been discovered soon thereafter, for, he actually got the lands surveyed by a Qanungo, Muhammad Rafiq (D. W. 11) in July 1968 (vide Exh. DF-15/3). Mo. Zahida Sultana did not reply to his letter asking for extension of time, yet he maintains that he was verbally informed by other persons "who had negotiated the compromise on her behalf that she had granted the extension". This was also the case chat was put to Mian Abdus Salam (P. W. 11) in cross -examination and it was further sought to be suggested that the entire property, namely, 101, The Mall, Lahore, had been acquired, repaired and reconstructed out of the moneys of the respondent. The witness, of course, denied this suggestion and stated that he actually paid the entire amount. The respondent only acted as his agent and did whatever was necessary to be done. With regard to the allegation regarding the taking of larger share of the land in the portion given to Mst. Zabida Sultana the witness stated that "the actual fact is that the main bungalow was divided into two equal portions but when the lawn was divided one portion became smaller and the other larger". The smaller portion was transferred, according to him, to the respondent. He denied the suggestion that the agreement was that the house and the lands would be divided into two equal portions and one will be transferred to the respondent. He also denied the suggestion that the respondent had carried out extensive structural alterations and additions at his own expense to make the bungalow a modern bungalow. According to him it was even now not a modern bungalow except for the fact that the front walls had been slightly modernised. The alterations were, according to this witness, made partly out of his own funds and partly by the respondent's funds. The deed of conveyance in favour of the respondent describes the property conveyed in the following terms :- "The vendor has agreed with the purchaser for the absolute sale to him of one half of the main building and the lawns adjacent to it of the value of Rs.48,000 only. This was shown in the plan annexed to the deed as marked in red colour. The plan annexed to the deed has not been filed but the description above given does not show that the half of the compound was also to be transferred. Actually it appears that he main bungalow was first divided by a dividing wall into two equal portions but subsequently after May 1964 when disputes and differences arose between the respondents and his wife the wall dividing the Bungalow was extended in a straight line on both sides to divide the compound. This was actually done under the supervision of the police who were summoned by the respondent himself and the respondent was also present in the house at that time (vide evidence to Main Abdus salam at page 76). If this be so then the allegation about encroachment or inclusion of a larger portion of the compound in the share of Mst. Zahida Sultana falls to the ground. There is no divided that the superstructure of the bungalow has been divided into two equal portion and he same wall has been continued in a straight line for dividing the compound. The deed of conveyance in favour of the respondents does not bear out his contention that the compound too was to be divided into two equal portions. The plan annexed to the conveyance has not been filed but another plan (Exh. DE-3) has been filed which shows the position. The plan also shows that the walls are projecting a little beyond the bungalow. It is not unlikely therefore that as stated by Main Abdus Salam (P.W.1) the walls were extended in the same straight line to divide the compound as well. If so then the position would be as it is now. If the plan annexed to the deed had been filed, then perhaps it could have been ascertained with greater certainty as to the area that was actually transferred to the respondent. The document has come from the custody of the respondent and it is not understood why the plan which was annexed as a schedule thereto, has been withheld. We can yin the circumstances only presume that the plan, if produced would not have supported the respondents contention. As regard the allegation that the entire funds for the acquisition of this bungalow were financed by the respondents the only evidence that we have before us is that of Mr.Nazir Ahmed (D.W.8) Mr. Nazir Ahmad s only basis for saying that the house was repaired at the expense of the respondents is that the respondents invariably consulted him with regard to the repair and decorations but he had to admit that the inference that it was the respondents who paid for these alterations and decorations out of his own monies, is purely conjectural, it cannot be accepted in the absence of any proof that the monies in facts came out of the assets of the respondents. Since the respondents was living in the premises as the son-in-law. It is unlikely that he looked after the repairs and the alterations and consulted his friends with regard to them. This by no means establishes that the expenditure for these alternations and decorations was also met out of the funds of the respondent. So far as Mr. Bashir Perwaiz (D. W. 8) is concerned, we have already had occasion to comment upon the unsatisfactory nature of his evidence but apart from this he too admits that the basis for his assertion that the monies were paid by the respondent was that they were handed over to him by the respondent in cash at the bungalow. He could not say whether the money was actually drawn by the respondent from any Bank or whether the respondent had the amount of cash at his residence. It will be noticed that even in the document (Exh. DE/5) drafted by him, for the purchase of the verified claim of one Lt: Col. Aftab Ahmad Khan, it had been stated that the payment was being made through the agency of justice Shaukat Ali. This document shows that the purchaser was Mian Abdus Salam and it recites that the "amount of sale price has been received by me in cash through Sh. Shaukat Ali, Advocate, 101, The Mall, Lahore". Similarly, the treasury challan (Exh. DF/14) shows that the payee of the amount is Mian Abdus Salam "through" the respondent, although the amount was actually tendered by the witness himself. In this case; too, he was not in a position to say as to from where the respondent took out the money, which he handed over to the witness. In neither of these cases, therefore, has it been established that it was the respondent who paid them money out of his own funds. These documents do not belie the evidence of Mian Abdus Salam that he paid these monies out of his own funds through his the then son-in-law, because the latter used to look after his affairs with regard to this bungalow. So far as the extension of the date of deposit under the compromise deed (Exh. PG/75) is concerned, the only evidence that has been produced is that of D. W. 21, Ch. Ijaz Ahmad. On his own admission he never went to the house of Justice Akram, where the compromise was entered into, nor participated in the negotiations that took place there. All that he states is that he talked over the telephone from Lahore with Mst. Zahida Sultana, who was then at Karachi, and she told him that he could tell the respondent that she had extended the time. Mian Abdus Salam (P. W. 11) denied that either this witness or his mother, Begum Niaz Ahmad, had anything to do with regard to the compromise or that any extension was ever granted by his daughter for the fulfillment of the agreement. The witness, of course, never met Mian Abdus Salam, nor is there any other evidence oral or documentary to support his assertion. The documentary evidence is actually to the contrary. When he was asked as to whether he did not consider it necessary in such an important matter to get a confirmation in writing from Begum Zahida Sultana, he stated that he did not consider this necessary. Again when he was asked if he could get that confirmation now, he had to admit TM that he would not be able to get it, since he had given evidence in favour of the respondent in this inquiry. It is inconceivable that in such an important matter after Begum Zahida Sultana Shah had actually issued a lawyer's notice to the respondent she would have agreed to the extension merely on the asking of Rah this witness over the telephone or that the respondent would have been content with such a telephonic extension. If there was any truth in the statement of the witness Ijaz Ahmad that an extension had been granted by Mst. Zahida Sultana, the respondent would have at least recorded this fact in a letter to the lawyer and asked him to confirm the same. It will be recalled that his written request for extension of time contained in his reply (Exh. P. H/18) to the lawyer's notice had not even been replied to by Mst. Zahida Sultana. We are unable, in the circumstances, to rely upon the oral assertion of this witness (D. W. 21) that such an extension of time was given. The story about the respondent lacking means at the relevant time to honour his commitments is also clearly untenable and Mr. Manzur Qadir has made no attempt to support it. He has frankly conceded that he cannot maintain that the respon dent did not have the means to meet his obligations if he was minded to do so. He had between January 1967, and February 1968, invested a sum of Rs. 6 lacs in the Metropole Cinema Ltd., and at or about the time he had to deposit this sum of Rs. 1,10,000 sold his four squares of land at Qila Rai Singh on the 11th of June 1968, for Rs. 1,20,000 and in May 1968, realized an income of Rs. 20,000 from those very agricultural lands. We cannot, therefore, accept that he was not in a position to honour his commitment under the compromise (Exh. PG/75) if he was minded to do so. We cannot also ignore the fact that the necessity of honour ing his commitments to his wife and children dawned upon him only after the declarations had been scrutinised and he received a hint to that effect from his own Chief Justice. Even then he did not fully comply with the terms of the compromise. It appears from the evidence of Mr. Gordan Shaunker (D. W. 2), the Assistant Manager of the Bank of America, that the respondent wrote to the Bank on the 6th of May 1970 (vide Exh. DF-11/2) to open three T. C. Ds. for ten years in the names of his children aggregating to Rs. 1,10,000 but with regard to the arrears of maintenance, the Instructions were given only on the 21st of September 1970 (vide Exh. DF 11/7). The letter (Exh. DF-11/4) dated the 24th September 1970, from the Bank to the respondent, however, discloses that some revised instructions were subsequently sent and according to this the periods of maturity were changed and the deposit certificates were sent to the respondent instead of being deposited In the Court as agreed upon in the compromise deed. It was only when this was pointed out to the respondent, during the course of arguments, that he offered to do so on the following Monday, the 21st of June 1971. From this evidence and the nature of the defence put up by the respondent it is clear that after the confirmation was granted the respondent totally disregarded his obligation under the compromise, although he was to a position to flied his obligations at the relevant time. It was only when this fact was brought to his notice by the Chief Justice that he made to attempt to fulfil his obligations towards his own children and that too in a rather reluctant manner. If his intention was, as he maintains, throughout honest. then one would have expected him to honour his solemn undertakings towards his own children before launching upon a scheme for the enrichment of himself, his second wife and her children. It is also clearfrom the attitude taken up by him even in his written state ment that he planned to claim to set off this amount against the alleged encroachment of an excess area in premises No. 101, The Mall, Lahore and that but for the hint given to him by his Chief Justice he would never have honoured his commitments. These circumstances, in our opinion, lead only to the inference that he would not have entered into the compromise, by which as he alleges, very liberal terms were given to his ex-wife, unless the litigation had not become a hurdle in the way of his confirmation. The compromise was entered into to remove this hurdle and once the hurdle was removed, the respondent took no notice of his further commitments thereunder, even though a lawyer's notice had been served upon him in April 1969. These facts do, in our opinion, support the contention of the learned Attorney-General that the compromise was merely a ruse for obtaining the confirmation. This charge, therefore, is also established. As far the liberality of the terms it need only be pointed out that he had got a property worth over Rs. 5 lacs for the payment of only Rs. 2,10,000 and that the persons who have suffered to the bargain are his own children by his first wife. The last two charges We come now to the last two charges. These are inter linked and we propose, therefore, to deal with them together. They are as follows:- Charge No. 9 "That he submitted to the Supreme Judicial Council of Pakistan a statement and/or declaration of his properties and assets and made explanatory statements during the enquiry. He wilfully made incorrect and misleading state ments therein to conceal the true state of his assets and real source thereof. In particular, the following statements and/or assertions made by him are incorrect: - (i) That he had received Rs. 70,000.00 in cash from his mother on 25-11-65, for acquisition of shares in the Metropole Cinema. (ii) That he had received a sum of Rs. 1,00,000.00 from his brother Sheikh Akhtar Ali on 4-11-67 in payment of the amounts allegedly due from him on two pronotes one dated 5-12-64 for Rs. 60,000.00 and the other dated 15-11-65 for Rs_ 40.000.00. (iii) that his shares in Messrs Vulcan ice factory Ltd were of Rs, 45,000.00 only. Charge No. 10 "That the assets held and acquired by him during the tenure of his office as a Judge up to 22-4-1969 are not commensurate with the legitimate sources of his income and propriety of a acquisition thereof by him is open to question." In charge No. 9 it is alleged that the respondent wilfully made incorrect and misleading statements with regard to the three items specified therein and in charge No. 10 it is generally alleged that the assets held and acquired by him during his tenure of office as a Judge up to 22-4-69 are not commensurate with his legitimate sources of income. According to a balance-sheet, which has been prepared by the learned counsel appearing for the Referring Authority, there is a short fall of Rs. 2,70,

305. Accord ing to this balance-sheet, the total value of assets acquired between 26-11-65 and 22-4-69 has been worked out at Re. 10,23,406.00 and the total receipts during the same period have been shown at Rs. 7,35,101.00 leaving a deficit of Rs. 2,70,

305. From the receipt side the following items are sought to be excluded altogether, namely:- (1) Rs. 1,00,000 shown to have been received in repayment of advances made on pronotes to his brother Akhtar Ali; (2) Rs. 70,000 said to have been received by way of loan from mother; (3) Rs. 68,700 said to have been received from Vulcan Com pany as sale proceeds of his sporting arms and electrical goods imported by the respondent and his wife. The learned counsel for the Referring Authority also maintains that the respondent cannot take credit for the entire debit balance of Rs. 1,17,714.32 shown in the books of account of Vulcan Company as advances to the respondent up to 22-4-69, because out of these advances admittedly a considerable portion was spent in household expenses and was not productive of any corresponding asset. On the acquisition side it is charged that the respondent has incorrectly disclosed that he invested only Rs. 45,000 in Vulcan Ice Factory Ltd. The actual amount should be Rs. 80,000 which is the face value of 800 fully paid up shares of Rs. 10,000 each acquired in the name of the minor daughter Samina Ali. We shall deal with these items separately. So far as the loan of Rs. 70,000 from the mother is concern ed, the case of the respondent was that on 10-1-67, he received Re. 50,000 from his mother for the purchase of shares, in their joint names, of the Metropole Cinema Ltd., and again on 28-2-68 he received a further sum of Re. 20,000 from her for the same purpose. The extract of the personal ledger account of the respondent with Metropole Cinema does not, however, corrobo rate this, for, on the 1st of January 1967, only Rs. 30,000 was credited to his account by transfer. Then on the 10th of Janu ary 1967, another amount of only Re. 15,000 was credited by transfer. On the 20th of May 1967, a further sum of Re. 20,000 was credited bringing the total to Rs. 65,

000. It is of course, the case of the respondent that his mother never maintained any Bank account but paid the amounts out of monies kept by her in her safe. Even after making these advances up to February 1968, the respondent's mother had, according to the declaration filed by the respondent, a cash balance left with her on 22-4-69 of Rs. 22,

000. The question is whether she could have had this amount of money with her? At the time of the family settlement in March 1957, she was given only Rs. 5,000 in cash and a life-interest in the following properties: - (1) House No. 75, Brandreth Road, Lahore. (2) House No. 7-E-1V, Isa Street, Main Bazar, Faiz Bagh, Lahore. (3) House located in Muhammad Kucha, Tezab Ihata, Lahore. (4) Agricultural land measuring 52 kanals in Jia Musa, Dis trict, Lahore. (5) House property in Jalalpur Jattan comprising of a garden and 3 kothas. In the declaration filed by the respondent, the area of 52 kanals of agricultural land in Jia Musa, District Lahore, has been omit ted from her assets and it is not known as to what has happened to this item of property. Another item which was not included in the deed namely, a 4-storied building situated on about 4 marlas of land in Ronti Mohallah, Jalalpur Jattan, has been included and shown as being in the occupation of the mother. The rental value of this property is accordingly shown as nil. Apart from the cash given to her the only other source of income she had left after the family partition were the rents received from these properties. The net income from these properties was calculated, by the respondent, in his Form No. IV at a flat rate of Rs. 9,500 a year. This was made up of Rs. 8,000 per annum from urban property and Rs. 1.,500 per annum from agricultural property. Calculating on this basis the respondent claimed that from April 1957 to April 1968, i.e., 11 years, she acquired an income of Rs. 1,04,500 in addition to Rs. 5,000 given to her in cash under the deed of settlement. This made a total of Rs. 1,09,500 out of which she could easily have given Rs. 70,000 to the respondent. On the other hand, it is pointed out to us that so far as the Lahore properties are concerned, they were assessed to house property tax and municipal tax and according to the assessment orders filed by the respondent himself along with his written statement (pp. 98-100) the gross rental value of these properties was only Rs.8,340 per annum. If from this amount property tax at the rate of ten per cent, and the Lahore Corporation tax at the same rate, amounting respectively to Rs. 834 per annum is deducted, then the net income from the Lahore properties comes only to Rs. 6,672 per annum and if to this the income tram Jalalpur Jattan and Jia Musa properties is added at the rates shown by the respondents himself in the declaration, without making any deduction of any kind, the annual income of the lady would come to Rs. 6,672+Rs. 1,503+Rs. 120+ Rs. 960=Rs 9,

252. In eleven years she would thus have received Rs. 1,01.,

772. If from this amount a sum of Rs. 34,466 shown in the balance-sheet prepared by Eva Hornby & Company, Chartered Accountants (Exh. D. W. 16/2) as the total amount spent in repairs, is deducted, then the balance left with the lady would be only Rs. 67,306 and adding thereto a sum of Rs. 5,000, received by her in cash at the time of the settlement, the total available funds, with her up to March 1968, would be only Rs. 72,306, assuming that she spent Nothing on herself in the meantime. It is obvious that from this she could not possibly have paid Rs. 70,000 to the respondent and still be left with Rs. 22,000 as she says was left with her. This contention of the learned counsel for the Referring Authority thus appears to be of substance. It is admitted that the lady has not paid any Income-tax after 1957-58 when she ceased to be a partner in the firm of Vulcan Company. If her net income was really Rs. 9, '.00 per annum, or even Rs. 8,000, after excluding her agricultural income, then she would have been assessable to income-tax and it would have been the easiest thing to produce her income -tax returns for the subsequent years to show what her net Income was. We are not also prepared to accept that the lady never spent any amount out of this sum for her own personal needs. On reference to her ledger account with Ally Brothers & Company (Pakistan) Ltd., at page 49 of Exh. P. H. 11/3, it appears that in May 1965, she took an advance from this company of Rs. 1,000 in addition to the rental at the rate of Rs. 150 per mensem which she was receiving in respect of the premises occupied by Ally Brothers & Company Ltd. If she had, as sought to be contended by the respondent, such a huge amount of money lying with her in her own safe, what was the necessity of taking this advance. This was pointed out to the learned counsel for the respondent during the course of his arguments, but no reply could be given as to why this amount was drawn for which a debit had to be raised against her in the ledger. Unfortunately, the ledger account books of Ally Brothers & Company for subsequent years have not been filed. We are not in a position, therefore, to say as to what were her subsequent transactions, if any. But on the basis of the calculations we have made it does appear to us that the doubt originally expressed by the Council with regard to this item has been confirmed. In this connection, it has also to be pointed out that in order to support his case of having received a loan from his mother the respondent had filed some affidavits of his mother, her rent collector and some of her tenants, but he declined to produce the deponents of the said affidavits for cross-examination when the learned Attorney-General Insisted on his right to cross-examine them. The Attorney. General has, therefore, contended that these affidavits are of no value at all and should not be taken into consideration. He also placed reliance upon a decision of the Lahore High Court in the case of Abdul Hamid v. Karam Dad (P L D 1966 Lah. 16) for resisting the admission of these affidavits. Learned counsel for the respondent does not challenge the correctness of the principle3 enunciated in this case, but relies upon another decision of the Karachi Bench of the West Pakistan High Court in the case of Iftikhar Ahmad v. University of Karachi (P L.D 1957 Kar. 635) to show that the affidavits cannot be excluded from the record. This decision does not help the learned counsel. It does not lay down that the deponent of an affidavit can refuse to be cro3s-examined when the other party bona fide desires to cross-examine the witness. The proviso to Order XIX, rule 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure, clearly provides that when any party bona fide desires the production of a witness, who has given evidence by affidavit, for cross-examination, the Court may direct the production of such a witness. In the Karachi case all that was held was that where the production is not sought bona fide, as in that case, the Court may refuse to summon the witness. The principle of law, however, has, in our view, been correctly laid down in the Lahore decision that in proceedings which are not of an interlocutory nature the admission of affidavit evidence "is subject to the proviso (which is an important safeguard for the truth) that in case the opposite-party controverts the allegations by filing a counter affidavit or demands the attendance of the deponent for his cross-examination, the party relying on the affidavit must produce him in the witness-box and if the deponent fails to submit to the cross-examination, the affidavit shall lose all its force as a probative piece of evidence in the case and cannot be acted upon". We fully endorse this view and rule that in the present case too by withholding these deponents the respon dent has rendered these affidavits unworthy of any credence. In the absence of this evidence we have nothing left, apart from the declaration of the respondent, that his mother had the income disclosed by the respondent and was in a position to advance him Rs. 70,000 in 1968. The balance-sheets prepared by Eva Hornby & Company are of no value at all, for, they were prepared only on the basis of the statements of the respondent. Mrs. Eva Sayed (D. W. 16), who had prepared this balance-sheet of the respondent's mother, admitted that no accounts were maintained by the lady nor were any account books produced before her. She was only shown the declaration filed by the respondent and -relying upon his statements she prepared the balance-sheet without bothering to check either the counterfoils of rent receipts or the assessment orders with regard to the assessment of house property tax or the municipal tax. Indeed., she did not even meet the lady whose balance-sheet she was preparing nor ask to see her rent counterfoil, assessment orders. or tax receipts. Such a balance-sheet prepared on the basis only of oral statements of the party concerned cannot be accepted as depicting the -true picture. In the absence of any reliable evidence, therefore, to support the claim of the respondent that his mother had the income shown by him from her properties, we not only find it difficult to accept them at their face value, but, as we have already shown, we find that even if we assume the improvable that the lady saved every penny she got she could not have had an income sufficient to provide her with the means of making an advance of Rs. 70,000 to the respondent for the purchase of the shares of the Metropole Cinema Ltd., and still be left with Rs. 22,000 in her hands. She could, in no event, have advanced more than Rs. 50,

000. Again although the respondent says that he has after selling the shares on the 10th December 1969, repaid Rs. 70,000 to his mother. It is difficult to appreciate from where he got this amount after depositing Rs. 6,50,000 out of the total sale proceeds of Rs. 6,52,903 in the Bank of America on the 13th December 1969. (Vide Exh. C-4). The next item of receipt that has been challenged is the amount of Rs. 1,00,000 which the respondent claims that he lent to his brother Akhtar Ali. The only evidence produced in support of this consists of two documents typed on the letter head of Vulcan Company Ltd., one dated the 5th December 1964, and the other dated the 15th November 1965; which have been described by the respondent as promissory notes, even though the documents bear no revenue stamps. If they are promissory notes, then they cannot be admitted in evidence on this ground. But they are, in our opinion, nothing more than mere acknow ledgements. These have not been exhibited formally, but they were filed in support of the declaration submitted by the respondent and have been referred to in the course of arguments. They are now marked as Exhs. C-5 and C-6. They appear to be on fresh paper and the signatures on both these documents appear to have been made at one and the same time in the same ink. Indeed, the ink of the signatures on these two documents is so fresh that we cannot but suspect their genuineness. The learned Attorney-General has characterised these transactions as fictitious loans which were neither advanced nor received back. The endorsement relating to the repayment of the amounts of these documents appears on the first document of 5-12-64. There is no date under the signature of either the payer or the payee but the endorsement, which has been typed differently, recites that the entire amount of the loans have been paid back on the 4th of November 1967 and both the promissory notes accordingly "stand cancelled". But curiously enough, the so-called promissory note of the 15th of November 1965, purports to have been cancel led on the 4th of December 1967. Reliance has, in addition to this, been placed on the wealth statement filed by Mr. Akhtar Ali (Exh, DF-19) in which this amount of Rs. 1,00,000 has been shown as a liability payable to the respondent. Similarly, in Exh. DF-18, another wealth statement for the period ending 30-6-67, a sum of Rs. 60,000 only has been shown as payable to the respondent by Sh. Akhtar Ali. In the wealth statement, for the period ending 30-6-68, of the respondent, however, no corresponding disclosure has been made of any loan having been made to his brother Sh. Akhtar Ali. An explanation was sought to be given for this omission by saying that this amount was included in the "cash in band and Banks" heading. But this is obviously incorrect, for, the cash in hand and in Banks is only shown at Rs. 42,429 for this year and for the year 1964-65 it was shown as Rs. 52,

267. According to our calculation in 1964 and 1965 the respon dent could not have had so much cash as to be able to lend Rs. 1,00,00 to his brother as also make a deposit of Rs. 50,000 with Ally Brothers (Pakistan) Ltd. Our calculation is as given hereunder :-- Professional income as per statement of income-tax returns up to year ending 30-6-65 3,56,200.00 Cash received under family settlement 1,28,000.00 Agricultural income up to 30-6-65 24,000.00 Sale proceeds of lands up to 30-6-65 56,000.00 5,64,200.00 During this period he incurred the following outgoings:-

1. Purchased shares of Vulcan Co. & Allay Brothers 1,10,000.00

2. Purchased shares of State Bank and National Bank of Pakistan 1,500.00

3. Purchased 2 share 101, The Mall, Lahore in 1962 48,000.00

4. Purchase of land in Wahdat Colony in 1963 13,000.00

5. Purchase of agricultural lands 3 squares in Qila Ray Singh in 1962 24,000.00

6. Purchased lands in 11aqa Nawab Sahib and Juliani village 20,936.00

7. Cost of tube-well installed in 1965 12,000.00

8. Insurance Premia paid up to 30-6-64 38,334.00

9. Library 20,000 00

10. Deposit with Ally Brothers up to March 1965 according to Ledgers of the Company 94,322.96

11. Income-tax paid up to assessment year 1962-63 (Income-tax returns for 1963-64 to 1966-67 were filed in 1969 and demand notice issued on 30-6-69) 26,130.00

12. Household and personal expenses up to 30-6-65 calculated at his own estimate at Rs. 1,000 per mouth for 8 years 96,000.00

13. Cash in hand in Banks as per his own declaration and balance-sheet prepared by Eva Hornby up to 26-11-65 11,439.00 5,15,661.96 Deducting this from his receipts of Rs. 5,64,200.00 we get the available balance with him of only Rs. 48,538.04. It is clear, therefore, that he could not have lent a sum of Rs. one lac to his brother Akhtar Ali during 1964-65. The above figures have been taken from the particulars. furnished by him along with his own declaration, the certified copy of income assessed to income-tax and tax paid for the assessment years 1958-59 to 1969-70 which was given by the Income-tax officer, Salary Circle Il, Lahore, on the 8th of December 1969 (marked C-7), and the particulars furnished by the respondent along with his letter of the 13th of December 1969, sent to the Supreme Judicial Council (marked C-4). This does not, in our view, establish that any such loan was given to Sh. Akhtar Ali or he re-paid this amount to the , respondent in November 1967. In this respect too, we cannot help observing that Mr. Akhtar Ali has been withheld, although he was once cited as a witness. Many of these questions could have been clarified if Mr. Akhtar Ali and the respondent had come into the box to support their assertion that these loans were, in fact, made and has been subsequently paid back to the respondent in November 1967. We cannot, therefore, accept that this was a genuine receipt of the respondent in the year 1967 or that it was available to him for the purchase of the shares of Metropole Cinema Ltd. With regard to the third item of Rs. 68,700 on the receipts side, said to have been received from Vulcan Company as sale proceeds of sporting arms and electrical goods imported by the respondent and his wife, learned counsel for the Referring Authority has relied on the evidence of Ghulam Rasul Malik (D. W. 18) at page 113, which is to the following effect:- 94Q.-How was the sum of Rs. 68,700 on account of the purchase of articles paid to Justice Shaukat Ali? Ans.-These amounts were paid to Judge Sahib from time to time and finally a cheque for Rs. 15,000 was paid in full settlement of the whole accounts. Q.-Is there any entry of the payment of Rs. 15,000? Ans. Yes, Sir. It is at page 6 of the ledger for the year 1966-67. Q,-Do I take it that on 23-9-66 this account was fully settled? Any.-Yes, Sir. It was fully settled and there was no payment after this date. It is, therefore, urged that it is wrong for the respondent to claim credit for the entire amount in the year 1966-67. Actually, these were book entries in adjustment of his ledger account which, even after such credit, still showed a debit balance of Rs. 1,399.47 at the end of March 1967. The personal ledger account of the respondent with Vulcan Company for the year 1966-67 (Exh. PH-33/1) shows at page 6 that on the 23rd of September, he was given credit for Rs. 68,700 and a sum of Rs. 15,000 was debited to his account (videExh. PH-33/1). No particulars of how the amount of Rs. 68,700 was paid from time to time, are available from these books. The actual position, therefore, is that he received, as the witness stated, only Rs. 15,000 in September 1966, after adjustment of his debit balance against the price of those goods, In this sense, of course, it is not correct to say that he had the entire amount of Rs. 68,700 available with him to set off against his acquisitions after his appointment as an Additional Judge. On the other hand, it may well be argued that during the course of the year if his debit balance with Vulcan Co. was adjusted, he was benefited to that extent of the price of the goods and, therefore, the price formed an asset, and it is for this reason that the actual amount of Rs. 15,000 paid to respondent has been shown as a debit in the books of account. In this view of the matter, we are unable to agree with the learned counsel for the Referring Authority that the respondent is not entitled to claim credit for the entire amount of Rs. 68,700, particularly, since it is not now challenged that the sporting arms and the electrical goods imported by the respondent and his wife were sold to Vulcan Company for this amount. The result is that we find that the respondent's declaration was false in so far as two items of assets claim by him were not and could not have been available to him at any material time. The last charge Charge No. 10.-This brings us to the last charge, namely, as to whether the respondent's assets acquired during his tenure of office as a Judge up to 22-4-69 were commensurate with his legitimate and known sources of income. After the disallowance of the two items mentioned above it follows that this charge must also be held to be proved, for, the surplus of Rs. 99,626 left even according to the balance-sheet prepared by Eva Hornby & Co., for household expenses will have disappeared. But apart from this the correctness of certain other items has also been challenged. The first relates to the credit balance with Ally Brothers & Co. Ltd. The respondent has claimed credit for Rs. 94,322.96 as funds lying in deposit with Ally Brothers Ltd. up to March 1965. The personal ledger account book No. 11 of Ally Brothers and Company for the year 1965 (Exh. PH-11/2 in the other Reference and Exh. DG/31 in this case) contains at page 50 the personal ledger account of respon dent showing a credit balance on 31-1-65 of Rs. 43,529.82 and at page 78 another personal account No, 2 showing a credit balance on 20-3-65 of Rs. 793.14. Thus, according to this ledger account, his credit balance with Ally Brothers & Company stood at Rs. 44,322.96 at the end of March 1965. When this was pointed out to the respondent, he produced the Company's own Ledger No. 1 for the year 1955 which was marked as Exh. DG-20. (This was permitted without formal proof even though it was produced In the course of arguments). This ledger contains entries of the firm's own transactions such as good will godown, insurance, medical aid, municipal bills, purchase of goods, office equipment, etc. At page 304 of this book, is entered an account, called "Suspense Account No. 2". It does not mention whose suspense account it is, but it shows a credit balance of Rs. 50,000 on 8-5-65. Normally, according to ordinary accounting practice, this should have been the company's own suspense account but the respondent claims that this is his accoant. The respondent has now also filed two certificates (Exhs. DG-21 and DG-22) from the Habib Bank Ltd., and the United Bank Ltd., respectively, to show that a cheque issued by him on the 7th of May 1965, for Rs. 50,000 in favour of Messrs Ally Brothers was cashed through clearing by the United Bank Ltd., on the 10Lh of May 1965. Similarly, the United Bank Ltd., certifies that the same cheque bearing No. 325380 was cashed by them through clearance on 10-5-65 and credited to the account of Ally Bros. with it. (Vide Exh. DG-22). The credit entry in the ledger, however, is dated the 8th of May 1965. The certificates (Exhs. DG-21 and DG-22) were, of course, obtained during the course of arguments on the 17th of June 1971, but we have since verified from the statement of account of the respondent with Habib Bank Ltd., Commercial Building B,anch, Lahore, foi the months of April and May 1955 (since called for by us) that the respondent did have that amount to his credit with the Habib ~D at.: and lie issued a cheque bearing the No. 325330 for Rs. 50,00 in favour of Ally Brothers & Company, and it was encash-.d on 10-6-65. Even so why was .it not entered in his personal ledger account but kept in such a concealed manner in an anonymous suspense account in the ledger of the company itself?-The normal procedure should have been to enter it into the credit balance of the respondent in either of his personal .ledger accounts in Ledger Book No. II for the year 1965 (Exh. PH-11/3). Again why was the amount credited before the cheque was encashed?. These are questions which only the respondent could have clarified particularly, since there have been so many transactions between the respondent, these companies and his brothers that one cannot, with certainty, say to what particular transaction a particular entry is relatable. We would, however, in view of the evidence now produced, give him the benefit of doubt with regard to this item of credit. At this stage we would also like to mention that it is difficult for us to place much reliance on the books of account of these companies. because, on the admission of their own auditor, Mr. Hamid Chaudhary (D. W. 2 E) these companies are not above making fictitious entries in their books of account (vide, entry relating to advance of Rs. 35,000 to Samina Ali by Vulcan Ice Factory which the witness admitted at page 227) of his evidence, was "merely a book entry made for showing the capital as fully paid up". Similarly, the ledgers of Vulcan Company produced before us for the years 1967-68 and 1968-69 (Exhs. PH-76 and PH-43, respectively) appear to be new books which have been rewritten at the same sitting by the same hand and in the same ink, although some very crude attempts appear to have been made to dirty some of its pages. The pages of these books are actually thicker and newer than the books for the subsequent year 1969. These books also bear inherent evidence of rewriting. Thus, in the ledger books for the year 1968-69, at page 27, the ledger account of one, Salim Rashid, is shown as commencing from the 2nd of April 1969, with a credit balance of Rs. 100 bet at the bottom of the page the last entry is for January 1969 and it is carried over to the next page, i.e. page 28, up to March 1969. It is obvious that the rewriter of this ledger when rewriting got mixed up and opened the account with April 1969, when it should have been 1968. Similar mistakes appear at pages 68 and 69, where the account of one Matlub Shah commences from April 1969, when it should have commenced from April 1968. The same mistake also occurs at page

101. Another curious thing about this book is that the account of Matlub Shah driver, which is entered at page 69, is carried over to page 68, although it should normally have gone over to page 70 and at the bottom of page 68 is brought forward the account of one Mukhtar Ahmad, which commences at page

67. Mr. Manzur Qadir attempted to explain this abnormality by saying that since page 70 was already occupied by the account of one Anwar Khan, the account of Matlub Shah was carried to page 68 which was then vacant. But this is obviously incorrect, because, if the entries in the account book had been made contemporaneously then the account of Mukhtar Ahmad should have come first to page 68, because, the last entry in his account at page 67 is of the 1st January 1969 and the first item at page 68 in the account of Matlub Shah is of the 30th of September 1969. The necessity for going to page 68, therefore, should have arisen first in the case of Mukhtar Ahmad and if the account books had been kept in a regular manner, his account should have been carried over first to page 68, and then if any space was left over the account of Madub Shah could have been brought on to this page. The account of Matlub Shah has also been wrongly commenced from April 1969, when it should have commenced from April 1968. These account books do not, therefore, inspire any confidence at all. When these defects were pointed out to the auditor, Mr. Abdul Hamid Chaudhary (D. W.24) he agreed that such a mistake could occur if fn the year 1969 somebody sets about writing or rewriting a ledger for the year 1968. In re-examination, Mr. M. Anwar, the second learned counsel for the respondent, tried to extract from him that such mistakes could equally well have been the result of a genuine error. The witness, however, found it difficult to accept this having regard to the fact that the error was fouad not only in one place but in several places in the same ledger book. The possibility, therefore, of the error having been made as a result of the sub-conscious working of the mind of the person who was rewriting the ledger in a subsequent year cannot be excluded. In this state of affairs we are unable to accept the entries in any of the ledgers of these companies at their face value. These accounts appear neither to have been kept regularly nor in any systematic manner but merely to suit the convenience of the partners. We may also point out that these ledgers, more or less consistently, apart from a few exceptions, show that the respondent was depositing Rs. 500 a month with Vulcan Company Ltd. up to September 1969. These entries according to the learned Attorney-General, were fictitious entries to show in a concealed form that the allowance, which the respon dent received as a legal adviser before his elevation to the Bench, continued to be paid to him even after his elevation to the Bench by these fictitious entries. We have already dealt with these entries when considering charges 1, 2 and 3 and all that need be said here is that the entries are extremely suspicious, particularly, since, they occur in account books (Exhs. PH-76 and PH-43) which themselves appear to have been fabricated at a subsequent date. There is yet one other entry on the acquisition side which has been challenged by the learned counsel for the Referring Authority. This relates to the correctness of the declaration that only Rs. 45,000 was invested in Vulcan Ice Factory Ltd. Mr. Abdul Hamid Chaudhary, (D. W. 24) admitted that actually 800 fully paid-up shares of the face value of Rs. 1,000 each were issued in the name of Samina Ali and, therefore, the share capital contributed by her was treated in-the books of company as Rs. 80,000 but since only Rs. 45,000 was actually paid, the balance amount of Rs. 35,000 was shown by a mere book entry as an advance to Samina Ali. Strictly speaking, if proper accounting had been done, the amount of actual invest ment in this company should have been shown at Rs. 45,

000. But since the result would have been the same, namely; that the net investment would have come to Rs. 45,000 we do not think that the respondent deliberately made a false declaration with regard to this item although strictly speaking the correct method would have been to show the face value of the shares and then show a liability of Rs. 35,

000. In view of our finding disallowing the entire amount of Rs. 1,00,000 shown by the respondent as the proceeds of promissory-notes received from his brother and the sum of Rs. 70,000 said to have been received as loans from the mother the receipts of the respondent would be reduced by Rs. 1,70,000 and would result in a great disparity between his receipts and acquisitions. The acquisitions would clearly be in excess of his known sources of income. In this connection it may also be pointed out that even Messrs Eva -Syed (D. W. 16) Chartered Accountant, who has prepared the balance-sheets of the respondent and his mother, could really discover only four mistakes in the balance-sheet prepared by the Council at the time of the scrutiny of the respondent's declaration. The first relates to a sum of Rs. 16,000 said to have accrued as agricultural income. The second was said to be a miscalculation in the net salary of the respondent. The third was that the Council had taken into account a sum of Rs. 15,000 as the value of land at Qila Rai Singh amongst the assets existing on 26-I1-65, but actually this property was acquired in January 1968, Therefore, this amount shoul.i not have been treated as a part of the opening sheets: The fourth was that in the final calculation, credit had not been given for the import duty paid by the respondent in respect of two cars. The procedure, according to this witness, of calculating the wife's assets, was also not strictly in accordance with the accounting procedure. It is not without significance, ho never, that she admitted that the net result of the discrepancies was an error in favour of the respondent, for, according to the Council, a sum of Rs. 1,04,461 was available to the respondent for his household expenses but according to her, the actual sum available should have been only Rs. 99,

626. The Council had, therefore, given him credit for an excess amount of Rs. 4,

835. If, as we have now found, an amount of Rs. 1,70,030 has to be deducted from the receipt side, then the position will be that the respondent will not only have nothing left for his hous:hold expenses but even the assets acquired by him since his elevation would be beyond his income. So far as the net salary is concerned, in his Form IV the respondent has himself declared the net salary received by him up to 22-4-69 as Rs. 1,25,788 and in a note appended thereto has stated "that the salary shown above is not after excluding G. P. Fund contribution". The G. P. Fund contribution was, according to the directions furnished with the forms, to be excluded in computing net salary. Therefore, if from the amount of Rs. 1,25,788 the provident fund contribution of Rs. 23,878 is excluded, then the net salary will come to Rs. 1,01,916 and not Rs. 1,10,823.00 as calculated by Messrs Eva Syed (D. W. 16). It is not known upon what basis this figure of net salary has been atrived, because, the breakup of the deductions from salary have not been furnished. In any event the figures, upon the basis of which she has arrived at this amount were not before the Council and the Council could only have proceeded on the basis of the particulars given by the respondent himself in his verified declaration. If this error of about Rs. 9,107.00 in the calculation of net salary made by Messrs Eva Syed (D. W. 16) is deducted, then the respondent according to her, would have only Rs. 90,519.00 left for his household expenses. But it is unnecessary to pursue this point any further since we have now found ourselves unable to give credit to the respondent for Rs. 1,70,000 on the receipt side. On this finding alane, it must be held, that charges Nos. 9 and 10 have been proved. Our calculation of his receipts and acquisition from the 26th of November 1965 to 22nd of April 1969, after such disallowance is as follows : - Rs. 1 Income from agricultural land 56,000.00 2 Net salary 1,01,961.00 3 Arrears of professional fees 1,28,561.00 4 Dividend on shares 5,102.00 5 Sale proceeds of agricultural land at Qilla Ray Singh 1,20,000.00 6 Sale proceeds of agricultural land in Ilaqa Nawab Sahib 42,000.00 7 Sale proceeds of village lands at Juliani 5,000.00 8 Sale proceeds of library 15,000.00 9 Matured insurance policy 13,615.00 10 Loan from National Bank of Pakistan 50,000.00 11 Loan from Vulcan Co. 1,17,714.00 12 Reduction of bank balances and cash in hand 6,387.00 13 Reduction of credit balance with Ally Brothers 63,028.00 14 Sale proceeds of goods to Vulcan 68,700.00 15 Sale proceeds of Mercedes Benz Car imported by wife 31,500.00 16 Insurance compensation on total loss of another Mercedes Benz Car 35,000.00 TOTAL 8,59,523.00 During the corresponding period his out-goings were as follows : Price, 65-Brandreth Road acquired on 4-11-66 4,320.00 Price, agricultural lands in Ilaqa Nawab Sahib, acquired on 2-3-66 15,000.00 Shares, Vulcan Ice Factory 45,000.00 Shares, National Shipping Corporation 6,930.00 Shares, Metropole Cinema Ltd . 6,00,000.00 N. I. T. Units 3,003.00 Increase in household effects 3,000.00 Bank balance in name of minor daughter Samina Ali 3,125.00 Capital gains of wife between 27-11-65 and 22-4-69 as per declaration in Form IV 32,500.00 Customs duty paid on 2 cars 24,000.00 Payments made under deed of compromise to his first wife 55,000.00 Deposit in name of children from first wife 1,00,000.00 Arrears of maintenance of children paid at the time of compromise 22,000.00 Life insurance premium paid out of personal funds during 26-11-65 to 22-4-69 as per particulars given in Form IV 54,718.00 98,68,596.00 The excess expenditure is thus Rs. 1,09,073.00, which is not accounted for by his known sources of income. In addition to this, if we add to this excess his household expenses, calculated even at the rate given by the respondent of Rs. 2,000 per month for 41 months, the excess will come to Rs. 1,91,073.00. Even if we accept that his mother gave him Rs. 50,000.00, the shortfall will still be Rs. 1,41,073.00. The conclusions to which we have, therefore, arrived at, may be summarised as follows :- (1) Charges Nos. 1, 2 and 3.-The so-called companies, in which the respondent invested, were really partnership concerns running under the veil of incorporation. Association in such concerns was not merely holding shares in a private limited company but actively participating in activities of trade, industry and business. (2) Charge No. 8.-The respondent entered into the com promise only when his confirmation was postponed by six months in order to get over the hurdle in the way of his confirmation but as soon as the confirmation was made, he totally disregarded his obligations under the compromise entered into with his first wife by the intervention of his brother Judges in the High Court. He, therefore, not only obtained his confirmation by this ruse but also thought nothing of disregarding his solemn undertakings, even though he was thereby denying justice to his own children from his first wife. (3) Charges Nos. 9 and 10.-The claim of the respondent that he lent Rs. 1 lakh to his brother Akhtar Ali and subsequently recouped the same, has not been established. Similarly, his claim to have received an advance of Rs. 70,000 from his mother has not been established, as according to the Council, she could not have had that amount of cash with her at the relevant time haying regard to her income from her properties. She could in no event have lent him more than Rs. 50,000.00. The assets acquired by the respondent between 27-11-65 and 22-4-69 were thus clearly beyond his known sources of income to the extent, at least, of Rs. 1,41,073.00. The declaration of assets filed by the respondent was, therefore, to that extent clearly false. The net result, therefore, is that we find charges Nos. 1, 2, 3, 8, 9 and 10 to have been proved against the respondent, and on the basis of this finding he must, in our view, be held to have violated Article Il (1st Part), III and VI (2nd Part of 1st Part) of -the Code of Conduct for Judges of Superior Courts. Learned counsel appearing on his behalf has pleaded that as v. far as charges 1, 2 and 3 are concerned, the Council should take into account the fact that he has, in May 1970, disengaged himself from these concerns by selling all his shares in all these companies. This was after the scrutiny of his declaration was completed Rah but before the report was submitted to the President and certainly Cha before the Reference was received and the charges were formu lated. Learned counsel contends that on the date the Reference was received, he was no longer even a shareholder of these companies and, therefore he could not be penalised for his acts ex post facto. The charge, it has to be pointed out, relates to his conduct during the period he functioned as a Judge from 26-11-65 to 22-4-69. Disengagement subsequent to this period cannot, therefore, be an answer to the charge, although it may be a factor to be taken into account when deciding as to what recom mendation should be made in the case of the respondent in view of the findings arrived at by the Council. Subsequent disengagement cannot exculpate him for his previous acts of misconduct but can only be taken into account as a mitigating circumstances in awarding the punishment. We shall, therefore, deal with this matter when considering the question as to what recommendation should be made. Declarations of other Judges Before we come to that we must also deal with another argument of the learned counsel for the respondent which relates to a matter over which the respondent had earlier, while Mr. Manzoor Qadir was away, adopted rather an objectionable attitude. He had at one stage, as earlier stated, filed an appli cation for giving him inspection of the declarations filed by some other learned Judges of the West Pakistan High Court in order to enable him to show what he alleged to be discriminatory treatment meted out by the Council to him. These documents could not be supplied to the respondents as they were confidential documents, and the Attorney-General has since also claimed privilege for these documents. It was, however, pointed out to the respondent that he was treading on dangerous ground by casting aspersions on the Council itself but he took no heed; and persisted in his demand. When the application was rejected, he even threatened to walk out, but did not do so at that stage, as it was made clear to him that if he walked out, the Council would treat his case as closed and submit its report on the basis of the evidence already on the record. Thereafter, he tried to make capital out of an observation of one of the members of the Council that in order to show that in similar circumstances another Judge had been treated differently, he can produce aliunde evidence. He was not ultimately allowed to do so but on 21-5-71 he filed a Chart cataloguing what he considered to be the similarities between his case and the case of another learned Judge of the same High Court. It was again pointed out to him that it was no defence for him to say that another learned Judge had been guilty of similar misconduct but the Chart was kept on the record and he was given liberty to refer to it at the time of arguments. The Chart was placed before us by Mr. Manzoor Qadir presumably at the insistence of his client, but he made it quite clear that he was not doing so as a defence bit merely as a reference to a precedent for the consideration of the Council and if the Council finds that the allegations which were made against another Judge bear any simi larity to the allegations now made against the respondent, then the Council, he hoped, would take the same view with regard to the respondent's culpability. The learned counsel for the respondent made no attempt to point out any similarities. On the contrary, he said that he could not say with any amount of certainty as to what facts were before the Council when it drew up its report about the other learned Judges. Since the Chart has not been produced to call attention to any provision of law or any principle deducible from our previous findings, and since we are merely called upon to compare the facts subjectively, we feel that vie are indirectly required to compare our two previous reports and to comment on them. We think consistently with what we have stated above, that it is not for us to do so. In this case we have before us detailed evidence explanations and elucidations from which we have to draw our conclusions. Many new facts are mentioned in the chart about the other learned Judge which were not before us when we wrote our report about him, and we do not know whether they would bear the test of proper scrutiny or not. Therefore, we cannot take them into consideration. Excluding those facts from consideration and taking the plentiful evidence which has been produced before us in these proceedings, all. we can say is that our present conclusions appear to us to be amply justified. This brings us now to the question as to what recommenda tion we should make under Article 128 of the Constitution of 1962. The only recommendation that we can make under this Article is as to whether a Judge should b-. removed from his office or not. Having regard to the gravity of the findings on not only one charge but on several charges, we have come to the conclusion that the misconduct found on the part of the respondent was of a "gross" character. Therefore, even taking into account the fact of his disengagement from the family concerns in May 1970, we find ourselves unable to say that they constitute a mitigating circumstance for these are not the only charges against the respondent. There are three other charges as well which have been found against him. The cumulative effect of these charges is that the respondent has acted in a manner wholly unbecoming a Judge. They, in fact depict the respondent's character in a very lurid manner. He not only managed to procure his confirmation by entering into the compromise with his ex-wife which he had no intention to fully honour but also treated her and his own children in an extremely shabby and unjust manner. As a Judge his first anxiety should have been to honour his pledged word and to do justice to his children before he launched upon any scheme for accumulation of wealth for himself. It has been conceded that if the respondent was so minded, he was in possession of adequate means to meet the commitments given to his ex-wife and children but still he disregarded his solemn undertakings and went on to acquire shares worth Rs.6 lakhs in the Metropole Cinema Ltd., in the hope that it would fetch him very good income. The inaccuracies found in the respondent's declaration cannot be overlooked, particularly, since he knew full well that even in its report the Council had mentioned that the transac tions between him and his brothers in connection with the family concerns and/or companies appeared to be "shrouded in mystery". One would have expected that as an experienced lawyer and as a Judge he would take good care to bring before the Council reliable evidence in these proceedings to remove its doubts. We regret, however, to say that the type of evidence which he has produced has left the Council with a very unfavourable impression of the character of the respon dent. He has not hesitated to produce forged, fabricated and false evidence. We have already commented on the nature of the evidence at several places earlier. It is not necessary to repeat them here. He has also suborned false evidence which, we might incidentally point out, has more than justified the misgiving entertained by one of the ex-Chief Justices of this Court at the time of his confirmation. These proceedings establish that what the learned Chief Justice then apprehended has come true in the course of these proceedings. He did not even hesitate to dupe the Registrar (P. W. 3) of the High Court into giving certificates to the effect that the respondent did not know of the contents of the Code of Conduct (Exhs. D/D. 3 and D/ D. 4) until 1968, although it was sent to the High Court in August 1965, and was published in the journal part of the Pakistan Legal Decisions in 1967. The Registrar, however, realized his mistake and requested to be recalled. He was recalled and examined as C. W. 1 on the 5th February 1971. On this occasion, he admitted that he had been grievously misled ; as the file relating to the Code of Conduct had somehow been divided into two parts in 1968 before he joined as Registrar and the file containing the duplicate copy of the Code signed by the respondent earlier along with that of some four other Judges was missing. A careful search had nevertheless revealed that a copy of the Code was sent to the respondent on the 8th December 1965 through the Confidential Office Movement Register (Exh. PH-31). Even so, it was suggested in cross-examination that no copy of the Code was sent to the respondent in December 1965, because the entry in the confidential register was in shorthand and it was not signed by the respondent. The witness explained that at that time there was no practice of getting the entry signed by the learned Judge. There was no suggestion, however that the entry was subsequently made or that it has now been fabricated. We see no reason, therefore, to doubt the entry and take a serious view of the conduct of the respondent in denying that he had received a copy of the Code in 1965. We cannot also help feeling that the disappearance of the tile is not purely accidental. Taking into account all the above facts and circumstances, we are constrained to come to the conclusion that the respon dent has, in violation of the Code of Conduct, which now exists in black and white, shown no regard to the standard of conduct expected from any Judge, much less from a Judge of a superior Court. He has., involved himself in trade, industry and business, and has identified his personal monetary interests with the financial interest of his family in the latter's pursuit of wealth ; intentionally placed himself in positions which were undoubtedly likely to embarrass him in the perfor mance of his functions as a Judge ; did continue to remain involved in objectionable litigation and undertook at the time of his confirmation as a Judge of the High Court of West Pakistan to disentangle himself from those complications but did not honour that undertaking, and lastly submitted his declaration of assets in which he made incorrect and misleading statements in order to conceal the true state of his assets and resources. We are, therefore, led to the final conclusion that his further retention in office is undesirable. This Council has, accordingly decided, with much regret, to recommend to the Presi dent that the respondent should be removed from his office. Before we part with this report we would like to place on record that although the respondent behaved in a most objec tionable manner throughout, we have not allowed. this act to influence our decision. This proceeding has been an extremely unpleasant and taxing experience for the Council. The respon dent forgot that he was appearing before five of the most experienced Judges in the country, and from the very beginning, either. by design or from force of habit, took up an arrogant and insolent attitude. At one stage he even insulted the Council in its face when the Council with great reluctance had to issue a notice for his committal for contempt. It was only through the timely intervention of Mr. Anwar, his counsel that a very ugly situation was avoided, for, otherwise the Council would not have hesitated to punish the respondent suitably. He also did not hesitate to falsely and maliciously malign the Council before other Authorities and even attempted at one stage to intimidate the Council by threats. Finally, he staged a walk-out even after the evidence was closed. Even so, the Council did not deny Mr. Manzoor Qadir the opportunity to address the Council on the respondent's behalf. Indeed, the Council has throughout, as admitted by Mr. Manzoor Qadir himself, not only shown the maximum amount of consideration but even treated the tantrums of the respondent with the indulgence they did not deserve. K. B. A, Referfnce answered.