The Supreme Court recently expunged adverse remarks made by a judge of the Uttarakhand High Court against a lawyer in an order passed in 2022 [Dushyant Mainali v. Diwan Singh Bora & Anr.].A Bench of Justices BR Gavai and KV Viswanathan criticised the High Court for making such adverse comments without first hearing the affected lawyer's defence."The approach of the High Court in making the observations against the appellant (lawyer) without giving him any opportunity of being heard is totally unsustainable in law," the Court said.The top court also emphasised that every court, including the Supreme Court, is bound by the principles of natural justice and that no one can be condemned unheard."There is no necessity to reiterate that even the Courts, including a highest court of the Country, are bound by principle of natural justice. Nobody can be condemned unheard," the November 25 order said. .The Court was hearing an appeal challenging a June 2022 interim order passed by the Uttarakhand High Court while considering a plea to condone the delay in filing a revision petition to challenge the correctness of a 2019 trial court verdict in a property dispute. The litigant claimed before the High Court that his wife had called a lawyer named Dushyant Mainali and asked him to file the civil revision petition in 2019 itself. The litigant added that he could not visit the High Court physically to verify if this was done as he was old and in poor health. He claimed that he had trusted to lawyer to follow through on assurances that the plea would be filed, but found out only in 2022 that the lawyer had not filed any such plea. In an order dated June 20, 2022, Justice Sharad Kumar Sharma of the High Court took a serious view of these allegations and referred the matter to the Bar Council of Uttarakhand for disciplinary proceedings against Mainali. This was challenged by Mainali before the Supreme Court.On November 25, the top court granted the lawyer relief by deleting the adverse observations made against him by Justice Sharma in the June 2022 order, including the reference of the matter to the State Bar Council. .The Bench also noted that it had disapproved Justice Sharma's tendency to make such adverse remarks against lawyers on earlier occasions as well. "This Court, in the case of same learned Judge of the High Court on various occasions, including in the reported judgment in the case of Neeraj Garg Vs. Sarita Rani and Ors. ... and recently in .... Siddhartha Singh Vs. Assistant Collector First Class/Sub Divisional Magistrate & Ors., vide order dated 24.09.2024, have observed with disapproval the proclivity of the said learned Judge of the High Court in making remarks against the advocates," it observed, before allowing advocate Mainali's appeal. .Senior Advocate Nidhesh Gupta and Advocates Vinod Kumar Shukla, Abhaya Nath Das, Sugam Mishra, Monica Goel, Kishor Kumar Mishra, Aditya Mishra, Barnali Basak, , Hukum Deo Prasad, and Satish Kumar appeared on behalf of the Mainali.Advocate Bankey Bihari appeared for a respondent..[Read order]
