One of the most extraordinary cases of a peculiarly oppressive and protracted litigation arose out of the insolvency of one Mirza Mahomed Shirazi.   This man was adjudicated insolvent about 1848, and kept in jail for three years at the instance of his creditors.   On his release from jail, he went away to his native country Persia; and there died four or five years later.   The proceedings that followed forcibly illustrate how the machinery of the law may be abused, and set in motion recklessly, and in a most harassing manner.   It also illustrates how easily a public officer, like the Official Assignee, may, on occasions, lend himself as a tool in the hands of interested persons, to gratify private malice.   It is also a striking example of the Biblical curse, that the sins of the father shall be visited upon his children unto the third and the fourth generation.   Various proceedings were instituted; and successive Official Assignees moved to file suits against various persons, for about 60 years after the insolvent's death.
 

The allegation of his creditors was that, about the time of his insolvency, the insolvent had transferred to and deposited with one Zainal, property valued at about Rs. 6 lacs, in fraud of his creditors.   Every effort was made to trace this property; and about Rs. 4 lacs were recovered.   Before leaving Bombay, the insolvent had given a power of attorney to Zainal; and it was alleged that Zainal had also passed a promissory note in favour of the insolvent.

This state of things led to continuous litigation involving Zainal and his descendants, the creditors and their descendants, the descendants of the insolvent, and a series of Official Assignees.   After the insolvent's death, the Official Assignee, at the instance of Zainal, filed a suit against the Shustaries, who were the principal creditors of the insolvent. This suit resulted in recovering a large sum of money and was compromised in 1875; and the Official Assignee accepted Rs. 75,000 for the benefit of the creditors; and Zainal, who had incurred all the risk and costs of the suit, was allowed to keep the balance.   Three or four years later, quarrels arose between Mahomed Nabi, a son of the insolvent, and Abdul Hussain, the son of Zainal, who was now dead; by reason of which Mahomed Nabi gave to a creditor of the insolvent certain documents, including the promissory notes which Zainal was alleged to have passed to the insolvent at the time of the insolvency.   About 1878, this Mahomed Nabi filed a suit against Abdul Hussain claiming the moneys which Zainal had retained in the suit against the Shustaries.   Sometime later, the then Official Assignee himself filed a suit to recover this amount from Abdul Hussain.   This attempt also failed.   In these suits, although Mahomed Nabi had access to the documents on which the suit was based, no reference was made to them or the alleged deposit of property by the insolvent with Zainal.   Abdul Hussain died in 1900; and in 1902, the grandson of the insolvent, one Mahomedali, filed a suit against certain members of the family of Zainal, in respect of the alleged deposit of property with their ancestor fifty years ago.   This suit was based on certain documents which were said to have been discovered about that time.   After a long hearing, this suit was also compromised.   Curiously enough, the Official Assignee was not made a party to this suit; although one of the defences to the suit was that, if anybody had a claim in respect of the alleged deposit, it was the Official Assignee, and not the grandson of the insolvent.   However, the suit was settled as stated above; and as a term of the settlement, it was stipulated that the documents on which the suit was filed should be destroyed by Mr. Owen of the firm of Craigie, Lynch and Owen, who were the attorneys for the defendants.   The documents were accordingly burnt and destroyed by Mr. Owen personally; but it was overlooked that a number of photographs and enlarged copies of the documents had been put in evidence in the suit by handwriting experts who had given evidence at the trial.
 

Three years later, in 1905, the then Official Assignee filed a suit based on these photographs and copies of the documents, the originals of which had been destroyed by consent of parties.   The defences taken in this suit were that the suit was barred by limitation, and that the documents were forgeries.   The suit lasted for about two months before Mr. Justice Beaman.   A large number of witnesses were examined, including handwriting experts, as to the genuineness of the promissory note and the other documents.

A curious feature of this suit was that the learned judge, while the suit was pending, gave sanction to prosecute the defendants on the strength of an affidavit made by a person alleging that the defendants had attempted to bribe a witness in the suit.   This order was passed without any notice to the defendants and behind their back.   This was irregular; and the defendants were put to considerable harassment as a result of the order.   At the further hearing of the suit, the man, who had made the affidavit, was himself called as a witness by the plaintiff to prove the attempted bribery.   This was both irrelevant and irregular; as this matter had nothing to do with the merits of the suit, and was meant merely to create prejudice against the defendants.   But the deponent himself proved such a shifting and unsatisfactory witness, that the judge began to entertain very serious doubts as to whether he was justified in giving sanction to prosecute on the testimony of such a witness. 

In this state of things, the defendants filed an appeal against the order of sanction.   The appeal came up before Chief Justice Jenkins, and he made strong observations as regards the proceedings.   He pointed out that such orders were very often obtained to put undue pressure on a party to compromise a suit; and if the court thought that there was room for investigation, the proper course was to direct the papers to be sent to the Public Prosecutor; and not to put such a powerful weapon of coercion in the hands of the opponent.   The order sanctioning prosecution was set aside.

After a hearing which lasted for about two months, Mr. Justice Beaman dismissed the suit, holding that it was barred by limitation; and further, that the documents on which the suit was based and the evidence of the handwriting experts were worthless.   He further made strong strictures about the way in which successive Official Assignees had allowed themselves to be made the instruments of ill-advised and oppressive litigation.   It was amazing that long after all the principal parties, who could speak to the truth of the matters, were dead, an officer of the court should have lent himself to drag the family into protracted litigation, on the strength of extremely questionable documents found in most suspicious circumstances.   He considered it shocking that after the lapse of so many years, and after continuous litigation between 1847 and 1887, it should be possible twenty years later to re-open the whole matter and prosecute a claim of this sort against the parties who admittedly had no hand in the alleged fraud.   Thus, nearly sixty years after the insolvent was dead, his bones, continually disturbed during the interval, were at last permitted to repose in peace.