Lawyer moves Kerala High Court challenging Bar Council show cause notice; alleges illegal leaks from High Court Registry to media

A lawyer has moved the Kerala High Court challenging a show cause notice issued to him by the Bar Council of Kerala (BCK) and has alleged that documents are being leaked from the High Court Registry to news agencies. .The lawyer, advocate Yeshwanth Shenoy, has been in the news of late, since he is facing contempt of court proceedings. .The following is the sequence of events that led to the present plea:February 9 - Shenoy appears before Justice Mary Joseph for a matter. Justice Joseph writes to BCK making allegations of misbehaviour against Shenoy;February 14 - BCK issues show cause notice to Shenoy;February 27 - Shenoy files and registers a plea alleging that only a very limited number of cases are listed each day before Justice Mary Joseph when other judges have to deal with hundreds of cases daily. A suo motu criminal contempt of court case against Shenoy is filed and registered;February 28 - A division bench issues notice to Shenoy on the contempt case;March 1 - A media organisation publishes an article allegedly containing excerpts from the contempt petition that was registered on the basis of a complaint letter sent by Justice Joseph to the Chief Justice. Shenoy's plea comes up before Justice Shaji P Chaly who directs the High Court Registrar General, who is arrayed as a respondent, to engage a counsel;March 3 - Shenoy's plea is taken up again but Justice Chaly decides to hear the matter first on maintainability and posts it for hearing on March 17. Senior Advocate NN Sugunapalan is engaged by the Registrar;March 3 - Shenoy files the present plea..Just this past week, Shenoy had moved a plea challenging the curtailment of the list of cases before Justice Mary Joseph, a sitting judge of the Court, to around 20 cases a day, when most judges have over 100 cases listed before them each day.That plea sought a direction to the Registrar General of High Court to have a standard criterion for listing matters before various courts in accordance with the directions of the Chief Justice.At around the same time, a division bench of the High Court issued notice to Shenoy after it initiated suo motu contempt of court proceedings against him. The reasons for initiating the proceedings was not mentioned in its order.Several news portals reported on the events and one agency published details of the suo motu contempt petition before it was served on Shenoy."When the Petitioner himself was not been given the notice in accordance with the order of this Hon’ble Court, it is clear that news agencies get documents from the registry even before the parties to the proceedings obtain the same. This aspect needs to be seriously investigated and responsibility fixed," the plea said.The BCK had also sent Shenoy a show cause notice. While the BCK notice stated that the proceedings were initiated by it suo motu, Shenoy claimed in the present plea that it was on the basis of a letter that Justice Joseph had sent to the BCK making allegations against him of misbehaviour during a hearing before the single-judge.According to the plea, issuing show cause notice in this manner is in violation of the procedure of the Bar Council. He claimed that the BCK had not responded to his request for a copy of the letter Justice Joseph is alleged to have sent it.Shenoy further claimed that despite his requests, the High Court Registry had not handed over the recording of the hearing in which he had allegedly misbehaved before Justice Joseph..Therefore, he moved the present plea seeking to quash the BCK notice, or in the alternative, direct the BCK to comply with the statutory requirements on receipt of complaints against advocates in accordance with the Rules and Regulations of the Bar Council.He also sought directions to the Registrar General of High Court to inquire into and take action against the persons responsible for the alleged leak of court documents to the media.