( 1 ) IN this ease notice has been issued to three office-bearer and five members of the executive committee of the District Bar Association, Muzaffarnagar, to show cause why they should not be dealt with for contempt of Court.

( 2 ) ON 20th April 1949, the executive committee held a meeting at which several resolutions were passed- The opening paragraphs of the first resolution were in these words :

"resolved that : whereas the members of the Association have had ample opportunity of forming an opinion of the judicial work of Shri Kanhaiya Lal, Judicial Magistrate, and Shri Lalta Prasad, Revenue officer.

It is now their considered opinion that the officers are thoroughly incompetent in law, do not inspire confidence in their judicial work, are given to stating wrong facts when passing orders and are overbearing and discourteous to the litigant public and the lawyers alike. " then followed a number of allegations which were described as "other defects" which were in addition to the defects common to both of them" referred to in that part of the resolution which has been quoted. On the following day a copy of the resolutions was forwarded by the President of the Bar Association to the District Magistrate, Muzaffarnagar, together with a covering letter in which the President said :"the complaints against them" (That is against the said Shri Kanhaiya Lal, Judicial Magistrate, and Shri Lalta Prasad, Revenue Officer) "as catalogued would suggest that they are incapable of improvement and thus instead of proving an acquisition to the bench, as these new cadres are expected to be, they are already discrediting it by deliberately perverting facts whenever it suits them. "

A copy of the resolution was at the same time sent to the Commissioner of the Division, to the chief Secretary of the United Provinces Government and to the Premier of the United Provinces. It is in respect of that part of the resolution of 20th April and of the Presidents letter of the following day which we have quoted that these proceedings have been instituted.

( 3 ) THE opposite parties have entered an appearance and each of them has filed an affidavit. In the case of two of them, Shri Sharvan Deo and Shri Sheo Shanker Lal, it now appears that they were not members of the executive committee of the Bar Association on 20th April 1949, and did not associate them, selves with the above mentioned resolutions. In the circumstances we are of opinion that there is no case for them to answer, and the notice to them must be discharged.

( 4 ) THE case of the remaining six opposite parties is this : Shri Lalta Prasad was posted at muzaffarnagar as Revenue Officer on 21st January 1949, and Shri Kanhaiya Lal was posted there as Judicial Magistrate on 22nd January 1949. These were the first appointments of these two officers. From the very commencement of their appointment complaints began to be made against them, and thereupon the Executive Committee of the District Bar Association took up the matter and made enquiries into the various grievances entertained by the members of the Bar and the litigant public. The sole object of the members of the Executive Committee in making these enquiries was to secure the proper administration of justice, and when the committee was satisfied that the complaints were well founded the aforesaid resolution was proposed and passed in the bona fide belief that the Association had a right to seek the redress of its grievances, and that the only way for it to do so was to pass such a resolution and forward it to the authorities. It is further said that the members of the Executive Committee bona fide believed that the executive authorities to whom the copies of the resolution had been despatched wore the proper authorities to whom complaints against these officers should be made, and that this belief was strengthened by the fact that the term e of office of these two officers was temporary, being terminable by the Government without n