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9. The respondent is an Advocate and is governed by the Advocates Act and the Legal Practitioners Act. Rules have been framed under the said statutes. Advocate is licensed to argue for his client, but that does not mean that the licence for freelance advocacy. It is not that Advocate cannot pursue his argument, that he should be meek and should sacrifice the cause of his client and surrender to the Court. The tenor of argument may be vehement but should not be voilent. It may be forceful, but not frightful. It may not be subservient, but should not be overawing or over-reaching. It should be persuasive, but not intimidatory. Oswald on Contempt (3rd edn. p. 54) said that oversubervient bar would be one of the great misfortunes that could happen to the administration of justice. At the same time, Warvelle on Legal Ethics p. 182, felt the need for a lawyer to observe scrupulously the decorum of the court room and be deferential to Judges. A client arguing a case as party-in-person and who is not legally trained may not know the etiquettes of the Court and limitations therein. But, an Advocate and more so, the respondent having 30 years standing at the Bar should know how to address the Court and it cannot be expected of him that he is ignorant of such procedure. He projected the case of his client and tried to make out a case that it was urgent for grant of interim orders, but on hearing him, the court felt otherwise and the respondent had to stop. The further step of the respondent in questioning the authority of the Court that the Court was wrong in opining that there was no urgency and that the very same court when it felt urgency on 23-2-1996, it committed wrong in feeling that there was no urgency on 27-2-1996 and that too addressing the Court in a raised tone amounted to contempt in the face of the Court and the respondent was brow-beating the Court indulging in intimidatory tactics to wrench order in his favour. While the argument is welcome and which is the right of the Advocate, there is no right vested in any Advocate to go on in his own fashion even intimidating the court and even defiantly till the Court concedes his request. Raising the tone does amount to shouting and may be not in the perception of the respondent. When the court rules against the Advocate's argument and the Advocate defies the decision of the Court in a raised voice, it only amounts to shouting at the Court. Though no dictionary needs to be cited, 'The Readers Digest Great Encyclopaedic Dictionary' defines the word 'shout' as loud cry expressing ..... defiance .....' Thus, it is a clear case where the respondent had committed contempt in the face of the Court on 27-2-1996. The respondent's contention that his conduct did not amount to contempt of Court and that he was arguing as an Advocate in the Court hall for the cause of his client, he cannot be said to have committed contempt of court and that an Advocate arguing the case for the cause of his cleint, cannot be arrested within the precincts of the Court and that the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 is not applicable to an Advocate arguing the case, are baseless and are made without knowing the principles of law relating to Contempt of Court and more so a contempt committed in the face of the Court for which a special provision is made in S. 14 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971. It is not that right to punish the contemner in the face of the Court is drafted for the first time in the above statute. This kind of contempt is sui generis and has been recognised since the times immemorial. Lord Denning in his book 'The due process of Law, 1980' said that contempt in the face of the Court is an old phrase, even tracing to the year 1631, where Richardson, Chief Justice of C.B. at the assizes at Salisbury was assaulted by a prisoner. Barristers are no exception (The Halsbury's Law of England, 3rd Edn. 8th vol.). That apart Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 is only an addition to the plenary powers, which the Courts of record, i.e. the Supreme Court and the High Courts possess under the Constitution under Articles 129 and 215 respectively. Even before the framing of the Constitution, having regard to the fact that the superior Courts were Courts of Record, this power was felt necessary and was being exercised. Blackstone, in his commentaries on the Laws of England (16th Edn. p. 286) held that if the contempt be committed in the face of the Court, the offender will be instantly apprehended and imprisoned, at the discretion of the Judges. Oswald on Contempt (3rd Edn. p. 23) said "upon contempt in the face of the Court and order of committal was made 'instanter' and not on motion. The contempt in the face of the Court covers all contempts for which a Judge on his own motion could punish a man on the spot and the contempt in the face of the Court is the same as contempt which the Court can punish on its own motion and it really means contempt in the cognizance of the Court." In the very nature of the power to commit the contemner of the contempt committed in the face of the Court, it empowers the Court to arrest the contemner at once even if the precincts of the Court and for that purpose there is no distinction made out whether he is a stranger, litigant or lawyer. The criterion is the contempt committed in the face of the Court regardless of the distinction with regard to the person and there is no privilege conferred if the contempt is committed by person other than the litigant. No person, however, high in position, including an Advocate, is above the law and more so of the contempt, which power is unique and vested in the courts of record so as to set the things right to maintain the decorum and dignity of the Court and uphold the supremacy and majesty of law as the entire edifice of the Constitution is based on this supremacy and majesty of law and if it fails, democracy will be in peril and everything perishes. The procedure and the punishment in a case of contempt committed in the face of the Court are summary and in their very nature, they need be summary as they cannot wait for a long and the respondent need not have felt any surprise when he was hauled-up in the Court and was ordered to be arrested right then. There is a power for the court and the power has been properly exercised. The very object of S. 14 is to enable the Court to preserve its decorum and maintain is dignity. But for his remorse felt and expressing regrets, the respondent could have been served upon him then and there itself and the matter would have been dealt with after affording opportunity. Unpleasantness was set at rest by the Chief Justice because of tendering of apology by the respondent. But, as he had resiled from the stand that he had tendered apology and persisted in defying the authority of the court even indulging in abusive language and also in preventing other advocates from presenting their cases, the proceedings for contempt were continued, firstly in CC No. 162 of 1996 and then in C.C. No. 180 of 1996.

12. In Pritam Pal v. High Court of M.P., , the Supreme Court was dealing with an Advocate's contempt making libelous allegations against the sitting Judges of the High Court. In the said case, the Advocate was practising in Madhya Pradesh High Court and having failed to wrench a decision is his favour, has escalatingly scandalilsed the Court by making libellous allegations against the sitting Judges of that High Court. He was punished for contempt of Court by the High Court and the same was upheld by the Supreme Court.

13. In K. A. Mohammed Ali v. C. N. Prasannan, AIR 1955 SC 454 : 1994 Supp (3) SCC 509, the Supreme Court dealing with a contempt, held that Advocate raising pitch of his voice unusually high to the annoyance of the Magistrate and also using derogatory language against the Magistrate before whom he was conducting trial for an accused, is a criminal contempt. It was held as follows at page 455; of AIR :

"We are of the view that when the appellant was warned of his unruly behaviour, he should have stopped and gone in tune with the learned Magistrate and not retained a defiant and aggressive posture. It should be borne in mind by one and all that lawyers were created for the Courts, not Courts for the lawyers. The happy combination, whenever an aberration occurs, should it immediately be restored and put any even keel".

19. There is yet another decision of a Division Bench of the Madras High Court in Re. Ranka M. Advocate, 1996 (1) Mad LW 203 which was a suo motu contempt against the Advocate, who had committed the contempt in the face of the Court. The said Advocate appearing in the case shouted at the Court - A Division Bench comprising Justice Srinivasan and Justice Abdul Waheer - and prevented the Court from expressing its observations, which it wanted to make in the course of arguments. The Advocate-contemner, in the said case, pleaded that he did not shout at the Court, but the same was disbelieved by the Court. Even the plea that nobody can become a villian overnight, meaning to say that even if the Court feels that he had committed, as the same was for the first time, no action should be taken, was repelled. The Court said that the above plea has no relevance as that was not the first occasion when Mr. Ranka shouted at the Court.