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Synopsis

The Supreme Court recently expressed its concern over a tendency on the part of the litigants to blame their lawyers for negligence and carelessness in attending the proceedings before the court.

A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan said that the litigant should not be permitted to throw the entire blame on the head of the advocate and thereby disown him at any time and seek relief.

Court dismissed a plea by one Rajneesh Kumar and others against the Himachal Pradesh High Court's order of 2019 which allowed the civil revision application filed by the original defendant or counter claimant and thereby quashed and set aside the order passed by the District Judge, Shimla condoning the delay of more than 534 days in filing the appeal by the petitioners (original plaintiffs).

The special leave petition arose from the order passed by the High Court in the review petition of July 10, 2020, by which the High Court rejected the review application.

The petitioners filed a civil suit against the respondent (defendant). The respondent filed a counter claim in the said suit. The civil suit came to be dismissed for default and the application for restoration moved by the petitioners was also ordered to be dismissed for default. The counter claim of the respondent was allowed by the judgment and decree of 2015 passed in the very same suit.

The first appellate court condoned the delay of 534 days in preferring the appeal essentially on the ground that the litigant should not suffer on account of negligence on the part of the advocate and the court should adopt a liberal approach in condoning the delay.

The respondent being dissatisfied by the order passed by the first appellate court condoning the delay challenged it before the High Court, which allowed the civil revision application by which the order passed by the appellate court condoning the delay of 534 days came to be quashed and set aside.

After hearing the counsel for the parties, the bench said it appeared that the entire blame had been thrown on the head of the advocate who was appearing for the petitioners in the trial court.

"We have noticed over a period of time a tendency on the part of the litigants to blame their lawyers of negligence and carelessness in attending the proceedings before the court. Even if we assume for a moment that the concerned lawyer was careless or negligent, this, by itself, cannot be a ground to condone long and inordinate delay as the litigant owes a duty to be vigilant of his own rights and is expected to be equally vigilant about the judicial proceedings pending in the court initiated at his instance. The litigant, therefore, should not be permitted to throw the entire blame on the head of the advocate and thereby disown him at any time and seek relief," the bench said.

The court relied upon Salil Dutta Vs T M & M C Private Ltd (1993) in which the top court said that putting the entire blame upon the advocate and trying to make it out as if they were totally unaware of the nature or significance of the proceedings is a theory which cannot be accepted and ought not to have been accepted.

With regard to the law of limitation, the bench referred to the decision of the top court in Bharat Barrel & Drum MFG Go Vs the Employees State Insurance Corporation, (1971) in which it was observed the object of the statutes of limitations is to compel a person to exercise his right of action within a reasonable time as also to discourage and suppress stale, fake or fraudulent claims.

The bench thus found no error in the impugned judgment of the High Court warranting interference in exercise of its jurisdiction under Article 136 of the Constitution.

Resultantly, court held that the petitions failed and accordingly, dismissed them.

Case Title: Rajneesh Kumar & Anr Vs Ved Prakash