Rajasthan High Court Slams Lawyer's Clerk For Signing Affidavit On Behalf Of Party, Says Practice Amounts To Fraud
The Rajasthan High Court has flagged the instance of advocates or their clerks signing affidavits for applications/petitions/counter affidavits, etc, on behalf of their clients without knowing the contents of such documents, and held that such conduct amounted to fraud and was unacceptable. The court said:“Justice is often metaphorically termed to be blind, but the officers of Courts must...
The Rajasthan High Court has flagged the instance of advocates or their clerks signing affidavits for applications/petitions/counter affidavits, etc, on behalf of their clients without knowing the contents of such documents, and held that such conduct amounted to fraud and was unacceptable. The court said:
“Justice is often metaphorically termed to be blind, but the officers of Courts must not dare to betray the trust of the Bench deeming the Judges to be sightless…The practice of Advocates or their clerks in filing the affidavit/petition/application/reply without proper representation with their own signatures cannot be appreciated and the same is liable to be deprecated.”
“An advocate's clerk, no doubt renders invaluable assistance in the advocate's office...Nothing entitles or enables an advocate's clerk to appear before the Court on behalf of an advocate," it added.
The bench of Justice Anoop Kumar Dhand observed that the courts did not think twice before presuming the genuineness of any document filed by an Advocate. In this light, nothing entitled the Advocate or their clerks to swear affidavits in a perfunctory manner on behalf of a party before the Court, especially those which included facts beyond their personal knowledge.
The Court held that if the Advocate or the Advocates' Clerk had no personal knowledge about a particular document's content produced by the party, it had to be verified properly before bringing the same on record, and it was also better to ask the party to swear the affidavit.
The Court was hearing a quashing petition filed by the petitioner who, as alleged by the respondent, had submitted a petition before the Civil Court, in the name of the respondent, seeking expeditious disposal of a partition suit instituted by the respondent against the petitioner. The Trial Court also passed an order in relation to this petition directing expedited proceedings.
It was the case of the petitioner that the petition was filed by the local counsel of the petitioner, whose clerk had put his signature on the petition, that too under the wrong name. It was submitted that the petitioner had never put his signature under the name of the other side in any papers submitted before the Court.
The counsel further argued that a complaint had been submitted by the petitioner against that local counsel before the concerned Bar Association and before the Bar Council of Rajasthan for appropriate action against him. Further, it was submitted that the petitioner had received no financial or any other gain from the order.
After hearing the contentions, the Court stated that without going into the controversy of the benefit received by the petitioner, it could not be ignored that mischief was committed with the record of the Court by submitting the petitioner with incorrect signatures.
The Court held that such practice of filing a petition with incorrect signatures of the party was not appreciable on part of the litigant, the lawyers or their clerks. While noting the growing trend of Advocates and their clerks signing on behalf of their clients, the Court opined,
“An Advocate or his clerk signing any petitions/applications/reply or affidavit instead of the party himself or a person designated/authorized by the party or the Advocate holding the Vakalatnama's/petition is unacceptable and such attempts to subvert the law is impermissible.”
The Court observed that even though the order had not caused any prejudice or loss to anyone, such an unwarranted act would not be appreciated bv the Court.
In this background, the Court held that it could not adjudge the correctness of the allegation levelled in the FIR as to who exactly was responsible for the act. Hence, it was not inclined to quash the FIR since quashing the FIR would give a wrong message to society.
Accordingly, directions were made to the IO to proceed with the investigation. The Court expressed its expectations from lawyers and their clerks that such mistake would not occur in future.
Title: Rakesh Jain v State of Rajasthan & Anr.
Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Raj) 389