Kerala High Court pulls up advocate for attesting false affidavit

The Kerala High Court recently criticised the conduct of a lawyer who attested his clients's affidavit containing false statements [Safwan Muhamed Sherif v Federal Bank & ors]

In a judgment delivered on August 17, Justice MA Abdul Hakhim found that the petitioner's explanation in his affidavit about his bank transactions were not supported by the documents on record.

However, the advocate representing the petitioner had attested his affidavit despite knowing that the statements contained in them were false.

The Court observed that such conduct by an officer of the court undermines the integrity of the judicial process and emphasised that advocates have a duty to prevent litigants from making false statements in their pleadings.

"It is well settled that advocates are officers of the Court. They should not allow the litigants to pollute the judicial system. Advocates should not allow their clients to make false statements when the advocates fully know from the documents available to them that their clients are making false statements in the pleadings. This Court strongly condemns the conduct of the counsel for the petitioner and strongly deprecates the practice of advocates attesting affidavits of their clients fully knowing that the statements contained in the affidavit are false," the Court said.

It made the observation while dismissing a petition filed by 22-year-old Safwan Muhamed Sherif, who sought the unfreezing of his account maintained with Federal Bank.

The case arose after the petitioner's bank account was frozen.

The bank explained that it had received five requests from investigating agencies to freeze the petitioner's account in connection with transactions involving a total of ₹21 lakh.

According to the bank, the account had remained largely inactive after being opened in January 2023, with only a few transactions.

However, from May 15, 2023, the account witnessed sudden increase in activity, with high-value credit and debit transactions exceeding ₹50 lakh being routed through it within about 15 days.

The bank received multiple notices from law enforcement agencies regarding these transactions.

In his petition, Safwan did not mention anything about his job or income but later filed an affidavit before the Court, claiming that he was a working partner in two businesses and earned monthly salaries of ₹35,000 and ₹40,000, apart from his share of business profits.

He said that the account was his main business account and that customers regularly transferred money into it.

However, the Court noted that Safwan had not produced any documents to establish that the two businesses actually existed nor did he explain the ₹21 lakh involved in the freeze.

The Court also found from the account statement that the entire amount credited to the account had been withdrawn leaving a balance of just ₹1 as of June 5, 2023.

It was against this background that the Court concluded that the petitioner had made false statements in his reply affidavit.

Therefore, the Court strongly condemned the conduct of the petitioner's counsel in allowing his client to file false statements but added that it was not going to take any action against the petitioner or his counsel, considering their young age.

However, observing that the facts of the case revealed the petitioner to have been using his bank account as a money mule (account to receive and transfer proceeds of cyber fraud), the Court dismissed his petition for unfreezing his accounts and directed the police to register a crime against him under Section 111 (organised crime) of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023.

Advocates Sadiqali M, Shamnad E, Ajish K Bose, Mohamed Shafi M and Muhammad Sabik appeared for the petitioner.

Senior government pleader VK Rafeek represented the State. 

[Read Judgment]