By IANS,
New Delhi : Worried about the sanctity of statements made in court, the Delhi High Court has rapped a lawyer for giving wrong undertakings to delay proceedings, and slapped a fine of RS.25,000 on the petitioner.
Justice S.N. Dhingra in his order this week pulled up a senior lawyer for giving wrong undertakings and misleading the courts and said: “It has become a normal practice to give undertakings in the court and then to deny them, defy them and not to act on them and then try to wriggle out of the undertakings by adopting one or the other method. The statements made in the court are losing their sanctity because of these kind of tactics being adopted and supported by the bar.”
He was hearing a plea from Sohan Singh, who wants the court’s earlier order in a property dispute changed.
In December last year, when the hearing was going on, the lawyer submitted before the court: “Singh shall be vacating the premises in his occupation within two weeks. Since it was the property of society, he shall hand over the possession of the premises to the receiver within a period of two weeks from the date of order.”
But Singh in his revision plea, filed through another lawyer, argued that the statement made by previous lawyer was without his instructions.
The court rejected the petitioner’s contention and said: “Filing an application after more than a month to withdraw the statement made in the court by counsel seems to be a part of the tactics adopted by the applicant to prolong the matter.
“It is most unfortunate that senior counsel are allowing themselves to be used in this manner and are prepared to argue that earlier senior counsel acted without instructions and the court should, on the weightage of an affidavit of instructing counsel, discard the submissions of the earlier senior counsel and believe the present senior counsel.”
The court imposed a cost of Rs.25,000 on the petitioner and asked him to deposit the amount in the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund.
“I consider that these kind of applications which try to demean and degrade the proceedings in the court and where the advocates are changed only with the motive of taking advantage of the procedural technicalities of the court should be deprecated,” the judge noted.