Ila Vipin Pandya vs Smita Ambalal Patel & Anr

1. The order passed by the Division Bench in an appeal against the order passed by the learned Single Judge of that Court is in question before us in this appeal. Respondent No.1 (Smita Ambalal Patel) had taken out the Chamber Summons in Testamentary Suit No.17 of 1996. By that summons she sought for the certified copies of Miscellaneous Application No.1 of 2004 in the Testamentary Suit as also the transcript of tape-recorded conversation between the appellant herein (Smt.Ila Pandya) and the respondent No.2 (Ms.Fereshte Sethna). The appellant had filed a Testamentary Petition No.132 of 1996 before the Bombay High Court for issuance of Letters of Administration in respect of the estate of her late husband, namely, Shri Vipin Dalsukram Pandya. In this suit the present respondent no.1 (Smita Ambalal Patel) had filed a caveat. Eventually the Testamentary Petition came to be converted into Testamentary Suit. Ila Pandya was being represented by respondent no.2 Ms.Fereshte Sethna in that suit. However, it seems that the appellant sought for discharge of her counsel in the case. This was objected to by the respondent no.2 who opposed the prayer of discharge. The appellant, therefore, had preferred a Chamber Order before the Prothonotary & Senior Master, High Court of Bombay and eventually the respondent no.2 was discharged by the order passed by the Additional Prothonotary & Senior Master dated 23.2.2004. In these proceedings respondent no.2 filed Miscellaneous Application No.1 of 2004 alleging therein that the appellant Ila Pandya had committed perjury and that an action should be taken against her. This was probably done as some allegations were made by the appellant against her erstwhile counsel, respondent no.2. The respondent no.2 in this application had also tendered two audio cassettes in support of her Miscellaneous Application No.1 of 2004.

2. The request made by the present respondent Smita Ambalal Patel in the Chamber Summons was resisted both by the appellant as well as the second respondent.

3. It seems that on 25th March, 2004 the High Court passed an order directing that the copies of the papers and proceedings in Miscellaneous Application No.1 of 2004 should be furnished only to the appellant and the respondent no.2. The respondent no.1 raised an objection to this by filing an application for speaking to the Minutes dated 5th May, 2004 which application was rejected by the High Court.

4. Even a praecipe was moved by Prothonotary & Senior Master before Justice S.K. Shah on 7.6.2004 due to numerous applications preferred by the respondent no.1 for inspection of documents pertaining to Miscellaneous Application No.1 of 2004 but the learned Single Judge declined to pass orders on this praecipe. It is, however, an admitted matter that even before that the respondent no.1 had already carried out the inspection of the Miscellaneous Application No.1 of 2004.

5. It was on this background that the Chamber Summon was taken out by the respondent no.1 seeking the certified copy of Miscellaneous Application No.1 of 2004 in Testamentary Suit No.17 of 2006 and also for a direction to furnish to the respondent no.1 the transcript of the two audio cassettes in respect of tape recorded conversation held on Saturday, February 7, 2004 between Ila Pandya, the appellant herein and Ms.Fereshte Sethna, the respondent no.2 herein.

6. In her application, the respondent no.1 submitted that she had required the aforementioned documents for the purposes of producing in court particularly in this Court where the Special Leave Petition filed against the order passed by the High Court in Testamentary Suit No.17 of 1996 was pending. Needless to mention that by this time the Testamentary Suit No.17 of 1996 was already disposed of and the Special Leave Petition filed by the respondent no.1 was pending in this Court. We may state at this juncture that in the said Special Leave Petition leave was granted and the Civil Appeal arising out of the said SLP being Civil Appeal No.2455 of 2005 was disposed of by this Court dismissing the same by its judgment dated 17.5.2007.

15. Since the respondent no.1 has not challenged the findings and the order regarding the audio cassettes, it is not necessary for us to consider that aspect.

17. We have carefully seen all these cases. The cases at Serial Nos.

(iv), (v) and (vii) pertain to Advocates misconduct. That is not the subject of the litigation. We cannot accept any contention raised by the respondent against the judgment of this Court in Civil Appeal No. 2455 of 2005 which judgment is by a Coordinate Bench. We must at this juncture point out again even at the cost of repetition that the said judgment authored by Bedi, J. cannot be and will not be reviewed by us particularly in the present proceedings. At any rate, none of the judgments mentioned above are apposite to the present controversy which we have dealt with in the earlier paragraphs of this judgment. We, therefore, reject the contention by the respondent that we should look into the judgment in Civil Appeal No. 2455 of 2005 and review the same.

18. In the above backdrop we do not see any merits in the appeal and dismiss the same with costs quantified at Rs.10,000/-.