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Civil Miscellaneous Petition No. 168 of 1973 in Civil Appeal No. 82 of 1972, decided on 5th November 1973.

(On appeal from the judgment and order of the Lahore High Court, Lahore, dated the 2nd June 1971, in Civil Miscellaneous No. 1451 of 1971).

Legal Practitioners Act (XVIII of 1879)‑--

---‑ S. 36‑Tout‑Enrolxent as legal practitioner‑Petitioner declared tout‑Supreme Court observing that a person declared tout could reform himself and if so done he could b9 enrolled as legal practitioner and directing petitioner's application for enrolment as legal practitioner to be considered afresh‑Enrolment Committee in possession of full facts about petitioner including certain cases against him referred to Committee after passing of Supreme Court's order‑Keeping petitioner's application for enrolment pending till his conduct cleared‑No contempt of Supreme Court‑Enrolment Committee alone had jurisdiction to grant or refuse licence.

Appellant in person.

Nemo for Respondents.

Date of hearing: 5th November 1973.

SALAHUDDIN AHMED, J.‑

This petitioner was appellant in Civil Appeal No. 82 of 1972 which was allowed by this Court on the 30th of January 1973. He had been declared a tout by the High Court under section 36 of the Legal Practitioners Act, 187), on the 19th of March, 1969. Having been aggrieved by this order he bad approached this Court and obtained special leave to appeal, and Civil Appeal No. 82 of 1972 was the result.

In the present petition the petitioner has applied to this Court for drawing up contempt proceedings against the Chairman and the Member of the Enrolment Committee, Provincial Bar Council, Lahore, who are respondents Nos. 1 and 2 herein, respectively, and for directing the Enrolment Committee to enroll the petitioner as an Advocate. It is alleged that the respondents have disobeyed the order of this Court passed in the aforesaid appeal. The operative part of the said order reads thus :‑

" .We allow the appeal and set aside the impugned order of the High Court, but pass no order as to costs.

We shall like to observe that the Bar Council may consider afresh the application of the appellant for enrolment, if acid when it is renewed.".

In course of our judgment in the appeal, we had made the following observations:‑

" The learned Judge seems to have proceeded on the untenable presumption that the appellant having once been declared a tout continued to be so for all time to come. In our opinion it is always desirable to afford an erring person a chance to reform and when his subsequent conduct unmistakably shows that he has reformed and intends to lead a reformed life and follow an honourable profession should be allowed to do so. The Court under section 36(1) of the Act possesses the authority to remove the name of a person from the list of touts if it finds from the facts and circumstances of a particular case that the particular person has ceased to be a tout and does not intend to revert to it."

The impugned order of the Enrolment Committee shows that the petitioner's application for enrolment was duly considered in the light of the aforesaid observations of this Court, and it was rejected, inter alia on the following grounds:‑

(1) There were more than one complaints p,‑riding against the petitioner including file No. 136 of 19/2 which was made on the 17th May, 1972, and was referred to the Tribunal of the Bar Council on the 1^st of April 1973.

(2) In several cases which resulted i7 the order suspending Raja Muhammad Ayub Khan from practice, the petitioner‑ abetted the former in committing professional misconduct.

(3) The petitioner tried to misrepresent before the Enrolment Committee that the Supreme Court had ordered the issuance of the license to the petitioner.

The Committee. therefore, was "constrained to keep the application pending till the conduct of the petitioner which is under examination in the cases noted above and in which it appears in an unfavourable light is held to be aboveboard

The Committee in course of the order observed as follows:‑

"We bow most respectfully to the observation contained in the second sentence of their Lordships' order quoted above It is axiomatic and who can quarrel with it.

It has been a consistent policy of this Committee to afford an erring person a chance to reform himself and when he has done so an I intends to join the honourable profession of law he lids always been allowed to do so. In the present case the petitioner gas erred not once but many a time and has not shown that he has corrected his ways. On the contrary it is clear from the facts narrated above that he has not done so."

The second sentence of our order referred to above reads thus:‑---

"In our opinion it is always desirable to afford an erring person a chance to reform and when his subsequent conduct unmistakably shows that he has reformed and intends to lead a reformed life and follow an honourable profession he should be allowed to do so."

We, therefore, do not think that the respondents have, in any way, disregarded or disobeyed the order of this Court. All that this Court had said was that the petitioner's application for enrolment should be considered afresh, and this was done. The Committee were in possession of full facts about the petitioner including certain cases against him which wore referred to the Tribunal after the passing of this Court's order. They alone had the jurisdiction to grant or refuse licence. They kept the petitioner's application pending until his conduct was cleared. In our opinion they acted rightly and for good reasons and within their jurisdiction.

The petition is accordingly dismissed.

Petition dismissed.

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