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TMI Blog1938 (9) TMI 16X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... roperty including property which had been seized by the District Judge and kept with the Nazir in proceedings under Section 192, Succession Act. The defendants set up a will alleged to have been executed by Mulchand in their favour bequeathing all the property to them. The Court over which the learned Judge who has made this reference was presiding decreed the plaintiff's claim in full and held that the will was a forgery. The defendants appealed to the High Court and there the appeal was dismissed and the finding that the will was a forgery was upheld. The decree-holder then took out execution and the judgment-debtors, including the opposite party, set up an adjustment of the decree but gave no evidence in support of their contention a ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... to discharge responsible and often disagreeable duties and it is essential that they should be afforded the utmost protection if the administration of justice is to remain independent, clean, fearless, unbiassed and impartial. When notice was issued by the learned Judge to the opposite party, he appeared and after admitting that he had sent the letter in question merely stated that he had nothing to add. No attempt was made to offer an apology and the learned Judge states that he showed no remorse for his conduct and did not utter a single word of regret. In this Court an apology was tendered by the opposite party's learned Counsel but not till after the completion of the arguments on behalf of the Crown, and not till after the case had ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... guments begin and before the person tendering the apology discovers that he has a weak case and before the Judge (when that happens, as it did here) has indicated the trend of his mind. Unless that is done, not only is the tendered apology robbed of all grace but it ceases to be an apology; it ceases to be the full, frank, manly, confession of a wrong done which it is intended to be. It becomes instead the cringing of a coward shivering at the prospect of the stern hand of justice about to descend upon his head. It then deserves to be treated with the contempt with which cowards and bullies who do not hesitate to threaten others and to impugn their honesty and character without the slightest foundation and who cringe and wail when their own ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... etition writer or somebody else of that calibre or he himself possessed the necessary knowledge and experience. Then the notice was sent by registered post, acknowledgment due: another act of deliberation. Then again, when the opposite party was called before the Court and given an opportunity to explain his conduct, he showed no contrition or remorse, offered no explanation (nor has he done so here), uttered no word of regret. This certainly negatives all theory of a foolish outburst made at a time when one's mind was temporarily unhinged. Then again what has been the opposite party's conduct throughout the case ? He set up a will which two Courts, one of them being the High Court, have held to be a forgery. I do not want to say an ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ogy if the letter were held to amount to contempt. I have accepted his explanation and am treating the apology as if it had been made at the outset. But, as I have observed, an apology is not something which a man is supposed to keep in his pocket till the last possible minute, nor is it intended to operate as a universal panacea. Everything depends upon the circumstances as well as upon the nature of the apology and the manner in which it is tendered. 6. Quite apart from the fact that it should have been tendered at the earliest possible stage in this case, the fact remains that there has been even now no apology tendered in the lower Court to the person directly injured, and even here the instructions read out to me which came from the op ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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