JUDGMENT
West, J.
1. The present reference has not been made as to any point arising in a litigation between parties before the District Court in a suit or appeal or in a matter wherein the Court was in the proper sense called on to adjudicate,–that is, to pronounce on the opposite pretensions of contending parties. In the case of Ghella Tarachand v. The Collector of Ahmedabad Printed Judgments for 1882, p. 257 Sargent, C.J., and Melvill, J., held that the District Court could not refer to the High Court even a point that arose in a contention connected with the Land Acquisition Act, X of 1870, and such a case would, it seems, be more analogous to an ordinary litigation than one in which the District Judge had only to consider whether or not a pleader had been guilty of professional misbehaviour. An inquiry of this kind is of a disciplinary character. See In re Hardwick L.R., 12 Q.B. Div., 148. Being disciplinary, it is not litigious, and the fact that an appeal is allowed from the Subordinate Judge to the District Judge does not make it litigious. Sections 617,647 of the Code of Civil Procedure cannot, according to the case we have quoted, authorize a reference, except in a matter of litigation, and we must decline to entertain the one now made to us. The District Judge will act on his own view of the facts and the law.
