Delhi HC Frowns Upon Rampant Practice Of Litigants Blaming Their Lawyers [Read Judgment]

The Delhi High Court, on Monday, refused to permit an Appellant Company to shift the blame on its Counsel for the delay in challenging an ex-parte judgment and shared the Trial Court’s concerns on employment of such measures.

“Trial court has, accordingly, held that appellant/defendant cannot conveniently shift the blame upon his counsels because now-a-days it is routine for the litigants to blame their counsels. Trial court has also noted that appellant/defendant was under obligation to contact his counsel, and once the period is as long as from July 2012 till about February 2016 when the application under Order IX Rule 13 CPC was filed, the appellant/defendant did not contact his counsel, hence, the appellant/defendant is not justified in throwing the blame upon his counsels specially when all the orders and proceedings of the courts are regularly uploaded on the website of the District Court and any ordinary person can easily find out about the status of the case, including the appellant/defendant who claim to be living at Jalandhar in Punjab and not at Delhi,” Justice Valmiki J. Mehta observed.

The Court was hearing an Appeal challenging an order passed by the Trial Court, wherein the Petitioner’s application for setting aside the ex-parte judgment was rejected. The ex-parte judgment had been passed in January, 2015, decreeing an amount of Rs. 4, 57,902 against the Appellant.

The Appellant Company had now submitted that it came to know about the judgment and decree only in February, 2016, on receiving notice of execution proceedings. It had blamed its counsel for not informing it about the status of the case.

The High Court, however, agreed with the reasoning and conclusion given by the Trial Court and dismissed the Appeal.

Read the Judgment Here

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