On Appeal from the Sudder DEwanny Court at Bombay.
For the Appellant :- Mr. Widgram, Q.C., Mr. Jackson and Mr. Forsyth. For the Respondents :- Mr. Burge, Q.C., Mr. E.J. Lloyd and Mr. Edmund R. Moore. Original jurisdiction not exercised by Privy Council - Documents, Improper suppression of, by Court below Discovery made after transmission of appeal to Privy Council Remission of case to Sudder Court for reconsideration without expressing opinion. [Para ] This Court will not act as a Court of original jurisdiction therefore, Where the Judge of the Court below, improperly suppressed documents, which were not discovered until after the transmission of the Appeal to Her Majesty in Council, their Lordships refused to give an opinion on the merits and remitted the cause to the Sudder Dewanny Court, for reconsideration. This suit was originally instituted in the Zilla Court at Kaira, by the Respondents against the Appellants. The Plaintiffs claimed to be a joint undivided family with the Defendants, and prayed for a partition and distribution of the joint estate. Evidence of a conflicting character was entered into on both sides, and Mr. Grant the then Judge of the Kaira Court, in accordance with the Bombay Regulation IV of 1827, sec., referred the whole of the evidence to a Punchayet Mr. Grant was after wards removed from the Kaira Court to the Ahmadabad Court, and Mr. Bell was appointed Judge of the Kaira Court in his stead. It appeared that, on the 5th of December 1827, the Defendant, Gullabhaee Valla-bhaee, presented a petition to Mr. Bell, objecting to the mode of examination which Mr. Grant had adopted, on the hearing of this case, and stating that that Judge had refused to take the depositions of some of the witnesses cited by him, for the purpose of proving that the property in question had ben acquired by one Bapoo-jee. The petition also stated, that the persons who had been appointed members of the Punchayet were friends and relations of the Respondents; that the case was not a proper one to refer to a Punchayet, and that the reference made to them had been without the consent of the petitioner. it would appear from the Order made by Mr. Bell, as endorsed upon the petition, that the Judge reserved the consideration of these objections until the hearing of the cause. This petition and order were numbered 312 on the file of the suit. On the 11th of January 1828, the Punchayet made their report, in which they declared that the majority of the title-deeds produced by the Respondents were genuine. On the 26th of February 1828, the Defendant, Gulla-bhaee, presented another petition to Mr. Bell, which reiterated the allegations contained in the last-mentioned petition, and distinctly alleged that the reference to the Punchayet was the consequence of a combination between eh Respondents and Sooruj Ram, the Mokhtar of the heirs of Raga bhaee and one Lukms Ram, the native agent to Mr. Grant. Mr. Bell endorsed an Order on this petition, that it should be brought forward at the hearing of this case, it appeared, however, that neither the original petition nor the Order made upon it were ever filed with the other proceedings in the cause. The Defendant, Gulla Bhaee, subsequently presented two other petitions, dated the 30th of April and 19th of June 1828, again impugning the conduct of Mr. Grant, and insisting that the members of the Punchayet were friends and relations of the Respondents, and had been appointed without his consent. No Order was made upon these petitions which were respectively numbered 313 and 319 on the file of the proceedings. Before the cause came on for hearing, the Zilla Court of Kaira was abolished, and the suit being transferred to the Zilla Court of Ahmadabad, the whole of the papers and proceedings, including the above mentioned petitions (Nos. 312, 313, 319), were forwarded to the last mentioned Court. In consequence of this arrangement, the cause again came within the jurisdiction of Mr. Grant. The Decree of the Zilla Court, bearing date the 1st of February 1829, declared that both the Respondents and Gulla-bhaee and his co-heirs were jointly interested in the property, and the claim of the Respondents was consequently allowed with costs. Gulla-bhaee appealed to the Sudder Dewanny Adawlut, which Court subsequently affirmed this Decree. It afterwards appeared that, in forwarding the proceedings and documents in this suit in the Sudder Adawlut, Mr. Grant withdrew and suppressed from among the proceedings the three petitions numbered 312, 313 and 319 and falsified the record of the proceedings received by him from the Zilla Court of Kaira, with the view of excluding all mention of those petitions. One important effect of the suppression of the three petitions was, that in the absence of those petitions it appeared as if Gulla-bhaee Valla-bhaee, instead of objecting from the first to the reference to the Punchayet, had acquiesced in that reference until the found its decision was against him; while, on the contrary, the fact was, that he always protested against such a submission of the case. A transcript of all the proceedings in the suit,as altered by Mr. Grant, together with all the papers and documents, with the exception of the three petitions before mentioned, were transmitted by the Sudder Adawlut to His late Majesty in Council. In the year 1837 the judicial conduct of Mr. Grant became the subject of a lengthened investigation on the part of the Government of Bombay. The suppression of the above-mentioned petitions, Nos. 312. 313 and 319, and the alteration of the record so as to exclude all reference to those documents, constituted one of the charges against him. The Commission appointed by Government to conduct the inquiry, reported that Mr. Grant was guilty of this and other charges brought against him, and in consequence of this report, the Government suspended him from office. The Bombay Government subsequently referred the case to the Sudder Adawlut recommended that a translation of the suppressed documents, a complete copy of the proceedings of the Commission, and the opinion of the Government respecting Mr. Grant's conduct, with their reasons for suspending him from the public services, should at once be forwarded, in order to be laid before Her Majesty in Council. This was accordingly done and the Appeal now came on for hearing on the whole case.