TMI Blog1967 (3) TMI 109X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... words used by the appellant in one of his grounds of appeal to the Joint Registrar of Co-operative Societies, which formed the basis of the complaint, did amount to contempt of any court. The facts necessary for the disposal of the appeal are as follows. The Sitamarhi Central Co-operative Bank Ltd. (formerly named as Sitamarhi Central Cooperative Union) was a society registered under the Bihar and Orissa Co-operative Societies Act, 1935, hereinafter referred to as the Act. The appellant was the elected Chairman of the Society, and was in control of its entire affairs. The bank was engaged in carrying on a business inter alia in salt, sugar and kerosene oil. It was alleged that the appellant entrusted to one Suraj Banshi Choudhary the work of supplying, coal for which purpose he was given an advance of ₹ 7,004-5-0 and that out of this amount a sum of Rs.. 5,014-5-9 could not be realised from Suraj Banshi Choudhary. Thereafter, a surcharge proceeding under s. 40 of the Act was taken up before the Registrar of Co- operative Societies on December 22, 1953 when a sum of ₹ 14,288-13-9 was held to be realisable from *,be appellant and another person. The appellant went in a ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... laid down two standards in judging the alleged liability of himself and Sri Jagannath Jha by exonerating Jagannath Jha from the liability for the entire amount of ₹ 14,288-13-9 while holding the appellant liable for the entire amount without examining the up-to-date position of payment of the amounts for which the claim had been preferred. In a supplementary affidavit filed on October 28, 1964, the appellant further stated that the order of the Assistant Registrar was mala fide in that at the time when it was made the Assistant Registrar was due for transfer and he had picked out two or three cases out of about fifty pending before him. The High Court at Patna turned down all the contentions of the appellant in an elaborate judgment and held that the appellant was guilty of a calculated contempt. He was sentenced to undergo simple imprisonment until the rising of the court and to pay a fine of ₹ 200 in default whereof he was to undergo a further simple imprisonment for two weeks. The last of the three points urged before this Court was the weakest to be advanced. There can be no doubt that the words used in this case in the grounds of appeal clearly amounted to 'con ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ieties under the Act. Under s. 6(1) the State Government may appoint a person to be Registrar of Co-operative Societies for the State or any portion of it, and may appoint persons to assist such Registrar. Under s. 6 sub-s. (2) (a) the State Government may, by general or special order published in the official gazette, confer on any person appointed under sub-s. (1) to assist the Registrar, all or any of the powers of the Registrar under the Act except the powers under s. 26. Under s. 13, the registration of a society makes it a body corporate by the name under which it is registered, with perpetual succession and a common seal and with power to acquire and hold property, to enter into contracts, to institute and defend suits and other legal proceedings and to do all things necessary for the Purposes for which it is constituted. Chapter V deals with audit and inspection of societies. Under s. 33 the Registrar must audit or cause to be audited by some person authorised by him, the accounts of every registered society once at least in every year. Under sub-s. (4) of s. 33 the auditor has to submit a report including therein inter alia every transaction which appears to him to be cont ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... b-s. (6) any person aggrieved by any decision given in a dispute transferred or referred under cl. (b) or (c) of sub-s. (2) may appeal to the Registrar. Sub-s. (7) gives the Registrar, in the case of dispute under this section, the power of review vested in a civil court under s. 114 and under 0. XLVII, r. 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 as also the inherent jurisdiction specified in s. 151 C.P.C. Sub-s. (8) gives the Registrar the power to state a case and refer it to the District Judge for decision whereupon the decision of the District Judge is to be final. Under sub-s. (9) a decision of the Registrar under this section and subject to the orders of the Registrar on appeal or review, a decision given in a dispute transferred or referred under cl. (b) or (c) of sub-s. (2) is to be final. S. 49 gives the Registrar power to summon and enforce the attendance of witnesses and parties concerned and to examine them upon oath and to compel the production of any books of account, documents or property by the same means and so far as may be, in the same manner as is provided in the case of a civil court under the Code of Civil Procedure. S. 50 authorises the Registrar in certain cas ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... nd is ousted under s. 57 L4 Sup. Cl/67-12 of the Act in case of disputes which fell under S. 48. A Registrar exercising powers under S. 48 must therefore be held to discharge the duties which would otherwise have fallen on the ordinary civil and revenue courts of the land. The Registrar has not merely the trappings of a court but in many respects he is given the same powers as are given to ordinary civil courts of the land by the Code of Civil Procedure including the power to summon and ;examine witnesses on oath, the power to order inspection of docu- ments, to hear the parties after framing issues, to review his own ,order and even exercise the inherent jurisdiction of courts mentioned in s. 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure. In such -a case, there is no difficulty in holding that in adjudicating upon a dispute referred under s. 48 of the Act, the Registrar is to all intents and purposes a court discharging the same functions and ,duties in the same manner as a court of law is expected to do. According to Halsbury's Laws of England (Third Edition Vol. 9) at p. 342 : Originally the term court meant, among other meanings, the Sovereign's palace; it has acquired th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Reference was there made to the dictum of Griffith, C.J. in Huddart, Parker Co. v. Moorehead(6) where he said: I am of opinion that the words 'judicial power' as used in section 71 of the Constitution mean the powers which every sovereign authority must of necessity have to decide controversies between its subjects, or between itself and its subjects, whether the rights relate to life, liberty or property. The exercise of this power does not begin until some tribunal which has power to give a binding and authoritative decision (whether subject to appeal or not) is called upon to take action. Reference may also be made to the decision of this Court in Shri Virindar Kumar Satyawadi v. The State of Punjab ([1955] 2 S.C.R. 1013 at 1018). There the question was, whether a returning officer acting under ss. 33 and 36 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 and deciding on the validity or otherwise of a nomination paper was not a court within the meaning of ss. 195 (1) (b), 476 and 476-B of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Here, too, the authorities which were cited in the case of Brainandan Sinha's case(1) were reviewed and it was said : It may be stat ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... :- (1) The presentation (not necessarily orally) of their case by the parties to the dispute; (2) if the dispute between them is a question of fact, the ascertainment of the fact by means of evidence adduced by the parties to the dispute and often with the assistance of argument by or on behalf of the parties on the evidence; (3) if the dispute between them is a question of law, the submission of legal arguments by the parties; and (4) a decision which disposes of the whole matter by a finding upon the facts in dispute and an application of the law of the land to the facts so found, including where required a ruling upon any disputed question of law. In our opinion, all the above requisites are to be found in this case. The question before the Assistant Registrar was whether the appellant and Jagannath Jha had caused loss to the bank and whether they were liable to compensate the bank for it. This arose out of audit proceedings. There was a written reference to the Registrar. There was a dispute between the bank on the one hand and the appellant and Jagannath Jha on the other to be decided with the assistance of arguments and on the evidence adduced. The dispute was a que ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... from the flat in her occupation. The Registrar, in exercise of his powers under S. 54 referred this dispute to his nominee Mr. C. P. Patel (the third opponent to the petition before the High Court). This case was numbered as Arbitration Case of 1961. In this arbitration case, Gauba appeared on behalf of his wife as her agent. It appears that Mrs. Gauba could not be served for some time and the case had to be adjourned on certain occasions. After a number of adjournments, when the matter was taken up on February 15, 1962, Gauba is alleged to have abused Mr. Patel calling him dishonest and a cheat . Mr. Gauba contended before the High Court that on the date on which he was said to have uttered the abuses Mr. Patel, in law, had ceased to function as a nominee of the Registrar, that the proceedings before Mr. Patel were in the nature of arbitration proceedings, that Mr. Patel was not a court within the meaning of the Contempt of Courts Act and lastly, even if he was a court, he was not a court subordinate to the Bombay High Court under sub-s. (2) of S. 3 of the Contempt of Courts Act, the alleged contempt being an ex facie contempt amounting to an offence under S. 228 I.P.C. On the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... is case was not a court. In the Bombay case, the matter was referred to the Assistant Registrar as a nominee who had to act as an arbitrator and make an award. So also in the Allahabad case, the Assistant Registrar merely acted as an arbitrator. In the case before us, the Assistant Registrar was discharging the functions of the Registrar under s. 6(2) of the Act under the authority of the State Government delegating the powers of the Registrar to him. It was sought to be argued that a reference of a dispute had to be filed before the Registrar and under sub-s. 2(b) of s. 48 the Registrar transferred it for disposal to the Assistant Registrar and therefore his position was the same as that of a nominee under the Bombay Co-operative Societies Act. We do not think that contention is sound merely because sub-s. (2) (c) of s. 48 authorises the Registrar to refer a dispute for disposal of an arbitrator or arbitrators. This procedure was however not adopted in this case and we need not pause to consider what would have been the effect if the matter had been so transferred. The Assistant Registrar had all the powers of a Registrar in this case as noted in the delegation and he was competen ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... eaning of the Contempt of Courts Act. After an exhaustive analysis of the power of superintendence of the High Courts under successive Government of India Acts 1915, 1935 and the Constitution, a Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court held that court, after the Constitution, ]lad the same power of superintendence which it had after the passing of the Government of India Act, 1935 and that in exercise of it can check the assumption or excess of jurisdiction by Panchayat Adalats or compel them to exercise their jurisdic- tion and do their duty and they were therefore, judicially subordinate to the Allahabad High Court. In re Annamalai(2) the .,question was whether a civil revision petition against an order ill (1) A.I.R. 1951 All. 667. (2) A.I.R. 1953 Mad. 362. the nature of an award passed by the Deputy Registrar of Co- operative Societies was entertainable by the High Court acting under Art. 227 of the Constitution and there after examining a number of authorities, a single Judge of the Madras High Court concluded that the High Court had revisional jurisdiction under Art. 227 by way of superintendence over the judicial work of a duly constituted tribunal like the Deputy ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... was no reason or principle on which any distinction could be drawn between a civil court which was subordinate to the High Court and a tribunal which was subordinate to the High Court under Art. 227 of the Constitution. The nature of jurisdiction exercised by the High Court under Art. 227 of the Constitution was gone into at length by a Full Bench of the Patna High Court in Budhi Nath Jha v. Manilal Jadav (1). There it was observed that It is also apparent that the power of revision conferred upon the High Court under Art. 227 of the Constitution is similar in nature to the appellate power of the High Court, though the power under Art. 227 is circumscribed by various limitations. These limitations, however do not affect the intrinsic quality of the power granted under Art. 227 of the Constitution, which is the same as appellate power. The learned Chief Justice of the Patna High Court relied to a very great extent on a passage from Story reading : The essential criterion of appellate jurisdiction is, that it revises and corrects the proceedings in a cause already instituted and does not create that cause. In reference to judicial tribunals an appellate jurisdiction, the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... f Art. 227 although the High Court could not, under the powers conferred by this Article, withdraw a case to itself from a tribunal and dispose of the same, or determine merely the question of law as to the interpretation of the Constitution arising before the tribunal. In our view, the subordination for the purpose of s. 3 of the Contempt of Courts Act means judicial subordination and not subordination under the hierarchy of courts under the Civil Procedure Code or the Criminal Procedure Code. It may not be out of place to note that subordinate courts have been dealt with in Chapter VI of the Constitution and Art. 235 of the Constitution gives the High Court the control over District Courts and courts subordinating thereto by providing for powers like the posting and promotion, and the grant of leave to persons belonging to the judicial service of a State. Such control is not judicial control and a court may be subordinate to a High Court for purposes other than judicial control. Even before , tie framing of the Constitution s. 2 of the Contempt of Courts Alit, 1926 made express provision giving the High Courts in India the same jurisdiction, power and authority in accordance ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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