Covid-19 Facility For Lawyers: Delhi High Court Warns Advocate Representing Hospital Without Authority

The court noted that it was a wrong statement made by an advocate without any authority and cautioned the advocate about such conduct in future.

The bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli said that it was "dismayed" that he appeared in the matter without any authority and made such a "serious" statement at a time like this.

The court then recalled its order passed on Monday in which it had directed the Rockland Hospital, Dwarka to handover its keys to the Bar Council of Delhi (BCD) for inspection and necessary arrangements for making the facility functional in terms of Adv. Yashvardhan Soam's submission.

Soam had appeared before the Court yesterday claiming that he was representing the Rockland Hospital in Dwarka and offered to handover keys of the non-operational institute to the Bar Council of Delhi.

Adv. Abhishek Singh today appeared before the court on behalf of Rockland (currently known as the Medeor Hospital) and submitted that Soam had no authority to represent the hospital. While Soam began to argue, stating that the hospital was non-operative due to some licenses not being available with it, the court cut him short saying that it was not going to get deflected into these tangential issues.

The bench has been hearing various petitions on Covid-19 management related issues in the national capital.

Advs. Abhishek Singh and Prateek Singh, representing Medeor Hospital, therefore sought a modification of the May 3 order, stating that Soam had misrepresented the hospital and made a false statement on their behalf.

Allowing the plea, the high court recalled its May 3 order to the extent that it asked the hospital to handover keys to BCD chairman and senior advocate Ramesh Gupta.

During the hearing, Sr. Adv. Rahul Mehra appearing for the Delhi government, also stated that it had come to his knowledge in the evening after the hearing that the lawyer had no authority to make the statement.

The court has listed the matter for further hearing on May 6.