'Is Bar Council Going On A Witch Hunt Against Its Advocates?': Bombay High Court Stays Proceedings Against Lawyer Geeta Shastri

“Is the Bar Council on a witch hunt against its advocates? ...If there is someone we should be taking action against, it's him,” Justice Patel said referring to the complainant.

The division bench of Justices Gautam Patel and Neela Gokhale stayed an order dated September 20, 2022 of BCMG referring a complaint against the 63 -year-old for a disciplinary enquiry.

The complaint was filed by Advocate Bansidhar Bhakad (60). He had filed a recovery suit against Ismail Yusuf College in 1995 seeking damages after the government college “wrongly” terminated his services. The college took out chamber summons for an amendment to their written statement which was allowed.

The chamber summons and affidavit was signed by Shastri. However, certain documents were signed “true copies” and submitted in court.

Subsequently, Bhakad claims to have found out that the government did not have original certified copies therefore the documents couldn’t have been signed as true copies by Advocate NP Pandit, and accused both of them of fraud.

After Bhakad failed to get relief on a complaint to Principal Judge of the City Civil and Sessions Court, he filed perjury proceedings. In her reply to the perjury proceedings in 2016 Shastri referred to certain ‘practice notes’ which the complainant found, didn’t exist. Thereafter he complained to the BCMG IN 2017 and the matter was referred to the DC Committee in 2022 following a hearing.

Shastri approached the HC seeking to set aside the order and the complaint.

Advocates Vishal Kanade along with Advocate Akshay Shinde for Shastri contended that the “true copies” were not signed by her and the mention of “practice notes” was a genuine mistake. She meant to say there was practice of keeping exhibits annexed to any proceedings based on an office order of the Prothonotary and Senior Master. Moreover, the matter was already pending before the City Civil and Sessions Court.

Justice Gautam Patel noted that everyone knew about the practice of keeping exhibits annexed to any proceedings and wondered if it was misconduct warranting an enquiry.

However, the court proposed to hear the matter finally on April 12. It granted liberty to Shastri to make Bar Council of India a party and directed affidavits in reply to be filed by April 10, 2023.