‘SC Advocates-on-Records Being Used Like Postmen’: Supreme Court Seeks Views Of SCBA, SCAORA & BCI To Deal With Misconduct Of AoRs

A bench of Justices BR Gavai and JB Pardiwala was hearing a suo motu contempt petition initiated against an Advocate and an Advoctae-on-record over the derogatory averments made in a special leave petition against a Karnataka High Court bench.   

During the brief hearing today, the top court requested the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), the Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association (SCAORA), and the Bar Council of India (BCI) to furnish their views on how to address similar cases of misconduct by advocates-on-record, before adjourning the hearing to the end of July.

Background

Mohan Chandra P – a practising advocate himself – had filed a writ petition before the Karnataka High Court, challenging the selection of the chief information commissioner and the information commissioners by the Karnataka government. This petition was dismissed by a single-judge bench of the high court, after which an appeal was filed before a division bench. The division bench not only dismissed the writ appeal, but also observed that no material had been placed before the court to substantiate the bold allegations the lawyer had made in his petition. For “wasting public and judicial time of the court by filing writ petition and writ appeal”, Mohan Chandra was directed to pay an exemplary cost of Rupees Five Lakhs.

In a petition by way of special leave, the counsel alleged that the division bench of the high court had dismissed his appeal for ‘extraneous reasons’ and had imposed an exemplary cost to exact revenge. He further wrote:

“The documents appended to the writ petition and writ appeal clearly show that [the counsel] has disclosed everything and not suppressed any material facts as observed by the division bench of the Karnataka High Court. Only to show favouritism towards the respondents and to harass the petitioner and only to gain publicity, the division bench has imposed exemplary cost for an ulterior purpose.”

In November of last year, a bench of Justices BR Gavai and BV Nagarathna expressed its displeasure over the imputations of favouritism and harassment made by the counsel against the division bench of the Karnataka High Court. “The aforesaid observations are not only derogatory to the Karnataka High Court but highly contemptuous in nature,” the bench said, as it issued contempt notices to Mohan Chandra as well as Advocate-on-Record Vipin Kumar Jai.

Earlier in April, another bench headed by Justice BR Gavai was told that the service of notice on Mohan Chandra could not be completed, in response to which it directed the notice to be issued personally to him through the Commissioner of Police, Bangalore. Not only this, the top court also sought the responses of the presidents of the Supreme Court Bar Association and the Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association. “Since the issue involved relates to the filing of the proceedings and advocacy before this Court, it will be appropriate that we hear the President of the Supreme Court Bar Association and President of the Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association before passing any order,” the bench notedin its order.

Case Details

In Re: Mohan Chandra P & Anr. | Suo Motu Contempt Petition (Criminal) No. 2 of 2022; connected with Mohan Chandra P v. State of Karnataka & Ors. | Special Leave Petition (Criminal) No. 19043 of 2022