Weed Out Advocates Who Casually Defy Court Orders, Take Stern Action Against Them: Bombay High Court To State Bar Council

The Bombay High Court has ordered the Bar Council of Maharashtra & Goa (BCMG) to weed out advocates who willfully and casually refuse to obey the court orders and to further take a strict action against such advocates and give a clearly strong message to the members not to defy court orders.

A division bench of Justice Ajay Gadkari and Justice Kamal Khata passed the order on September 30, while refusing to accept the unconditional apology issued by senior advocate Girish Kulkarni on behalf of advocate Mandar Lalsare.

"We are unable to accede to the request of Mr. Kulkarni, Senior Advocate. In the recent times we have observed a rising trend amongst Advocates to willfully and contumaciously disregard or blatantly disobey the Orders of this Court or to mislead it and thereby undermine the Authority of the Court. It appears to us that, the Advocates carry a perception that they could willfully disregard or disobey the Court orders and get away with it by offering some excuse or the other and if caught and faced with the ire of the Court, tender an unconditional apology either by themselves or through a Senior Counsel," the bench remarked.

The judges said that till now courts have time and again been "large hearted" and have forgiven such acts but such leniency over the years has emboldened the Advocates to treat the orders of the Court casually, wholly undermining its authority.

"It is high time this has to be stopped, as we see both Advocates, their clients, officers of the governmental institutions and even public at large taking orders lightly. In the recent past we have seen an act of misbehavior even by a judicial Officer who appeared in Court. We find it imperative to arrest this decline and prevent the authority of Courts being trampled by unscrupulous litigants and Advocates who have scant respect for the Court proceedings. We now place the onus and responsibility on the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa to help to weed out such Advocates by taking very stern action against them to send out a strong message to its members and to uphold the dignity of the Court," the bench ordered.

Notably, on a hearing held on September 28, Lalsare, appearing for one of the respondent banks, did not appear physically before the court and thus, the judges made him understand how serious the present matter was. The judges, then asked him to appear physically and come to court.

Lalsare, gave an excuse of having another matter to attend before the Aurangabad bench of the High Court. The judges, however, asked him to come to court in the afternoon session along with the Regional Manager of the Bank.

However, the bench was irked in the second session after noting that Lalsare did not turn up for hearing and instead sent a "proxy" counsel, who was telephonically asked to convey to the court that he (Lalsare) is in a "personal difficulty" and thus he couldn't come to the court physically.

The judges noted that despite pointing out the seriousness of the matter, Lalsare flouted it's directive and also did not send any Regional or Area Manager to the courthall but instead an official from the Legal Department of the Bank was sent.

The bench therefore, was irked over the counsel's conduct stating that he willfully disobeyed the orders of the court.

The instant matter has now been adjourned for further hearing till October 14.