Bombay High Court pulls up lawyer for attempt to change judicial order through judge’s personal secretary

The Bombay High Court recently pulled up a lawyer for approaching the personal secretary of a judge to get an order modified, without informing the other side in the case. [Siddhi Real Estate Developers v. State of Maharashtra & Anr].Terming the instance as being "singularly unfortunate and regrettable", a Bench of Justices GS Patel and Gauri Godse warned the lawyer of adverse consequences if the same is repeated.“For this one last time, we refrain from taking any stricter action against Mr Tigde (the lawyer). We do put him to notice that if there is a single instance hereafter, he will face the full brunt of the law…He would do well to know from now on and for the rest of his time at the bar, that while he owes a duty to his client, he is first and foremost an officer of the Court and his primary duty is to the Court,” the order said..“This is nothing but a sharp practice. It is conduct unbecoming and we express our grave displeasure at this attempt to change a judicial order pronounced in open court, and to do so without a hearing in court and without notice to the other side,” the Bench expressed in the 5-page order..After a hearing on August 4, the Bench had granted liberty to the petitioner to withdraw his petition challenging a demand raised by the respondent authorities.Counsel for the petitioner Advocate Sachin Tigde, during submissions, had requested the Court to allow deposit of 50% of the total demand raised, which the Court refused.On instructions, Tigde stated he will withdraw the petition and hence the submissions made by the lawyers were not recorded.Later that evening, Justice Patel was informed that Tigde had approached the judge’s private secretary who had taken dictation in court and asked him to include in the order a direction for a 50% deposit.When Justice Patel was apprised of this, he directed the secretary to not make any changes in the order and to list the matter on the supplementary board the next day..On August 5, Tigde was asked to explain his actions. He had no answer except an apology, which the Court refused to accept as it seemed insincere.“It is not sincere, and it is offered only because we have taken the trouble to list the matter and pointed all this out,” the order records.The lawyer then explained that he sought clarification on what the order included. However, the Court said,“There could have been no reason to seek such clarification. The order was pronounced in open court and, whatever else may be said about us, no one has yet said we are inaudible. No such clarification could have been sought from our secretarial staff. It could only have been sought from court on an appropriate application.".The Bench opined that if the lawyer would have succeeded in his endeavour, it could have led to their staff losing their job.“Not only would the Respondent have been prejudiced, but its advocate would have been perfectly justified in complaining that an order was changed to something totally different from what was dictated and pronounced in open Court. And our secretarial staff might well have lost his job,” the order recorded..As a precautionary measure, the Court also directed that a copy of this order be sent to the Registrar General for issuing appropriate instructions to all secretarial staff to not entertain requests from advocates and litigants henceforth..[Read order]