High Court initiates criminal contempt against litigant

The Madras High Court Bench here on Tuesday initiated criminal contempt of court proceedings against a litigant for engineering the filing of an anticipatory bail petition in the name of his adversary with a forged memo of appearance.

Justice P.N. Prakash directed the High Court Registry to initiate the contempt proceedings suo motu against M. Jeyaraj, secretary, Tamil Nadu All Manufacturers Development Society, a private body based here, and list the matter for hearing before a Division Bench.

The judge, however, let off a young lawyer, who had assisted the litigant in attempting to use the authority of the court for his personal ends, with a warning since the advocate had enrolled with the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry only last year.

Warning to advocate

“It would be sufficient to severely warn him and leave the matter to rest. It is said, every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. I sincerely hope that the advocate will bury his past and blossom into a legal saint in the future,” the judge said.

Disapproving of the conduct of the lawyer, he quoted the Supreme Court to have said: “The Bar is not a private guild like that of barbers, butchers and candlestick makers but by bold contrast, a public institution committed to public justice and pro bono public service.”

The judge said the issue would not have come to light if the litigant’s adversary, a government schoolteacher who had been accused of not repaying a loan taken from the society, had not come to the court at the right time and pointed out that the anticipatory bail had been filed by forging her signature.

Mr. Justice Prakash stated that the aim of Mr. Jeyaraj was to extract money from his adversary either by getting the anticipatory bail application referred to the mediation centre or by putting her under the threat of arrest after the dismissal of the advance bail application.

He also said another independent advocate had attested the memo of appearance even without insisting on the appearance of the petitioner. “By his casual conduct, the advocate has reduced the solemnity attached to the function of attestation to the level of a crass ritual,” the judge added.