Changing Counsel To File Review Without Consent Of Previous Lawyer Not A Healthy Practice: Chhattisgarh High Court Slaps ₹50,000 Costs

The Chhattisgarh High Court has emphasised that filing a review by a new counsel, without obtaining the consent of the previous lawyer who argued the matter at the previous stage, is not a healthy practice, and has subsequently slapped cost of Rs. 50,000 on an individual who engaged different counsels at different stages of appeal and review.

In the present case, the petitioner was held guilty in a departmental enquiry and was imposed a penalty involving stoppage of four annual increments with cumulative effect. Citing violation of principles of natural justice, this order was challenged in a writ petition in 2018, where a Single Judge of the High Court dismissed the petition and affirmed the order of the disciplinary committee.

The petitioner challenged the Single Judge's order in a writ appeal, which was also dismissed. Aggrieved, the petitioner approached the Supreme Court through a SLP which was also dismissed.

Challenging the order passed in the writ appeal whereby the order of the Single Judge was upheld, the petitioner filed a review petition before the High Court on the grounds that the SLP was dismissed by the Supreme Court in limine and not on merits.

A Division Bench of Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Ravindra Kumar Agrawal, noted that the petitioner had engaged different counsel and different stages of appeal. The petitioner had initially engaged an advocate to pursue his case before the Single Judge, a different team of advocates in the writ appeal, and in the review petition, he engaged another counsel who filed the application seeking review of the order.

Referring to Tamil Nadu Electricity Board and And v. N. Raju Reddiar [1997 (9) SCC 736]— where the Supreme Court deprecated the practice of filing a review petition by engaging a different counsel and termed such a practice "not conducive to healthy practice of the Bar", the Court noted:

“The writ appeal was pleaded and argued by the counsel, who was not there before the learned Single Judge and not here in the review petition. The counsel, who is arguing the present review petition has not raised any arguments in the writ appeal. The present counsel was not an arguing counsel, when the writ appeal was heard nor was present at the time of arguments. It would not be in the interest of the justice to permit such practice.”