Lawyer Has Right To Represent Client, Need Not "Beg" To Appear Before Court: Calcutta High Court

While interrupting a lawyer who "begged" for permission to appear, the Calcutta High Court's Circuit Bench at Jalpaiguri comprising Justices Harish Tandon and Prasenjit Biswas observed that lawyers need not use expressions such as "begging to appear" while representing their clients before the court.

The bench referred to such practices as 'relics' of the system's colonial past and commented that lawyers carry a right to represent their client, and they need not 'beg' to make their case.

The judges emphasised that a lawyer has a statutory and constitutional right to appear before the court which cannot be denied, and that begging to seek permission to appear in court is a practise preserved from the colonial times.

"These colonial expressions have gone now, we are independent. You have a constitutional and statutory right to appear. Nobody can deny you. Why use the word beg?" the Court remarked.