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In my opinion he is so protected, both on the authority of our own Full Bench case of Chunni Lal v. Narsingh Das [(1918) I.L.R. 40 Alld. 341.] , which we are bound to follow, and, if I may say so with respect, because I think the principles which that case enunciates reflect both the public interest and the law of India.

So long as the interests of litigants in this country are entrusted to recognized and qualified professional men and so long as the courts repose their confidence in the Bars which practise before them, I respectfully agree with Sir Henry Richards in thinking that it would be a disaster to the litigating public, both if the liberty of speech or action of their advocates were circumscribed by exposure to civil suits for words spoken or written in the course of the administration of causes entrusted to them, and if the Neutral Citation Number: 2023/DHC/000958 courts were by law compelled to withdraw their confidence from them. Such exposure would, I think, be calculated to limit their freedom and independence in their clients' interests to a greater extent than would be the case in England, if no absolute privilege existed there, since the risk of vexatious and often ruinous litigation in India is far greater. Nor do I perceive for what good reasons, so long as the same principles of the practice and administration of justice are maintained, or aimed at, in this country as in England, why the necessity for the maintenance of the absolute privilege of the Bar should be less. Indeed, there is the greater need for it in a country in which the advocate is exposed to larger risks of spiteful litigation. If it be said that, conversely, the risk of the abuse of an absolute priyilege is also greater, I should still maintain that it were better in the public interest that the immunity of the advocate should be sufficiently large to enable him to perform his duty fearlessly, than that some relatively few cases of abuse should be made the subject of a just civil liability. If abuse occurs, as sometimes from inexperience and sometimes from less excusable causes is bound to happen, the remedy lies, I think, not in an alteration of the law relating to the privilege, but in fostering high standards of practice; in the censure of the public and in the continuous vigilance of the courts themselves.

In this High Court the view has not been accepted that the definition of defamation contained in section 499 of the Penal Code, 1860 has by inference affected the absolute privilege of witnesses, parties and advocates in respect of civil liability for words spoken or written by them "in office" in the course of legal proceedings in which they are engaged. Whatever may be the proper view of the effect of the Penal Code, 1860 on the immunity of these classes from criminal proceedings for defamation and even if the exceptions by section 499 of the Code are exhaustive--which are matters not falling to be considered in the case now before us--I should for myself bed oath to think that the provisions of a criminal statute have altered Neutral Citation Number: 2023/DHC/000958 or affected the civil common law as to the privilege of certain classes in litigation--a privilege which existed, in India as in England, long before the Penal Code was enacted. If an anomaly has been created in consequence of section 499 of the Penal Code, 1860, then I should rather accept it than admit either that established civil rights designed in the public interest can be curtailed by mere analogies to be drawn from the criminal Code, or that the public can be deprived of the immunity accorded to their advocates in courts of law at least from civil liability."