Bombay High Court to Litigant: 'Don't make empty allegations against Advocate for delay'

The Bombay High Court has said that if according to the litigants, the advocate is responsible for creating a mess of their litigation, then appropriate proceedings should be taken or atleast the concerned advocate should be made a party before the court.

A bench of Justice Jitendra Jain observed that a regular practice has been observed to make allegations against the advocate by litigants in matters of delay without making advocate a party and without taking any action against the advocate.

In the case before court, an application was filed before court seeking condonation of delay of 203 days. The reason for the delay of 203 days was mentioned that the advocate who was engaged to handle the matter did not attend the matter nor the said advocate responded to various calls made by the applicant.

The applicant stated that on enquiry with few friends, he came to know from the website of the District Court that the suit was already decided. Thereafter, the applicant approached the advocate who advised him to file a review and on being informed that the review is not maintainable, it was decided to file an appeal to the High Court. The applicant lost trust in the advocate and, therefore, filed the appeal through another advocate. In the civil application allegations were made against the advocate to justify the delay.

Referring to the proceedings before the District Court, Justice Jitendra Jain said, "In the civil application, there is nothing mentioned as to what steps the defendant took to enquire about 6 August 2015 hearing. There is a general statement that the applicant kept on trying to contact the advocate and the advocate was not responding. There is nothing placed on record in support of this submission. The copies of the WhatsApp chats which is annexed to the civil application is of February and March 2016 which deals with review. I failed to understand that if the applicant has annexed WhatsApp chats from February 2016 then what prevented him to annex the WhatsApp chats, if any, from 6 August 2015 and if no WhatsApp message was sent why it was not sent when subsequently he has sent messages on WhatApp. There is nothing on record to show that from 6 August 2015, the applicant made calls to the advocate except bald statement. The applicant could have annexed the call data record from 6 August 2015 in support of the submissions made in the civil application. However, nothing has been filed."

On a specific query raised by the Court, the advocate before it fairly stated that no proceedings were initiated against the advocate in question. "On one hand, in the civil application, the applicant blames the advocate and on the other hand, does not take any proceedings against the advocate but makes allegations in the civil application without making him a party. Therefore, based on the records placed before me, the reasons given of attributing negligence on the part of the advocate cannot be accepted moreso without hearing the advocate and without there being any material in support of whatever is stated in the application. Acceptance of reasons would amount to accepting negligence of the advocate without any material and without hearing the advocate," Justice Jain went on to observe.

High Court accordingly held that no “sufficient cause” was shown for condoning the delay in filing the first appeal and went ont o dismiss the application.

Case Title: Rahul Sambhu Kabade vs. Subhashsingh Surajsingh Thakur