The Supreme Court on Monday expressed strong disapproval over the conduct of a senior lawyer who failed to give information to his client about the filing of a case, despite taking fees from the client[Meera Devi v. State (Govt of NCT of Delhi)].
The Court was informed that Senior Advocate Rishi Malhotra was the lawyer involved in the case, and that he had failed to inform the litigant about whether his case had been filed before the Delhi High Court or not.
A Bench of Justice Abhay S Oka and Manmohan expressed concern and posted the matter with other similar matters on December 19.
"Very sorry state of affairs. After a lawyer is designated as Senior Advocate, litigants is not told whether plea has been filed even after money has been taken," the Court said.
On December 19, the top court is slated to hear a matter on the formulation of guidelines for Advocates-On-Record (AoRs) to prevent them from blindly signing off pleadings that may include false statements.
The matter, in which Senior Advocate S Muralidhar has been appointed amicus curiae, has its origins in a convict's plea seeking remission in a kidnapping case.
During the hearing of the matter, the Court took up the larger issue of false pleadings being signed off by AoRs after finding that the pleadings in the convict's appeal suppressed certain facts.
In particular, the appeal filed through AoR Jaydip Pati did not disclose that the top court had earlier restored a sentence of 30 years imprisonment without remission for the appellant.
On September 30, the Supreme Court expressed its shock over this lapse, and noticed that such suppression of facts had become a trend in remission cases.
AoR Patil later claimed that he had signed off on the appeal at the insistence of Senior Advocate Rishi Malhotra, without realising that it involved a suppression of facts.
The top court took a serious view of this turn of events and asked Senior Advocate Malhotra to explain the allegations against him.
While hearing this case, the Bench had also orally remarked that Malhotra, appeared to have made false statements in at least 15 different cases.