Litigant Should Not Be Penalised For Advocate's Misconduct: Calcutta HC Condones 9 Yrs Delay In Filing Revision Plea, Imposes ₹10K Cost

The Calcutta High Court on Thursday opined that a litigant should not be penalised for the misconduct of his advocate and accordingly allowed an application seeking condonation of delay of about 9 years and 4 months in filing the revision petition.

The counsel appearing for the petitioner submitted before Justice Kaushik Chanda that the petitioner had not been informed by his advocate that his criminal appeal had been dismissed by the concerned Sessions Judge on December 13, 2012. 

The Court was further apprised that the petitioner came to know about the impugned order only on April 6, 2022, when he was arrested and thereafter he filed this instant revision petition. 

Furthermore, the counsel appearing for the Kolkata Municipal Corporation filed an affidavit against the application for condonation of delay contending that there is no specific denial as to the averments made by the petitioner in his application for condonation of delay.

Pursuant to the submissions, the Court underscored, 

"A litigant should not be penalised for the laches or misconduct on the part of his learned advocate. In the present case, though I am of the view that the petitioner should have been more diligent in pursuing his case before this Court, I am inclined to grant him an opportunity to contest his appeal on merit."

Accordingly, the Court condoned the delay in preferring the instant revisional application subject to the condition that the petitioner will pay a cost of Rs.10,000 to the State Legal Services Authority, West Bengal within a period of 2 weeks. 

Case Title: In Re: Satyadeo Prasad Shaw

Case Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Cal) 224

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