Bombay High Court Takes Exception To Lawyers Coming To Court 'Unprepared'

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday (January 28) orally took exception to advocates not coming prepared for their matters, despite the same being listed for hearing.A division bench of Justices Revati Mohite-Dere and Dr Neela Gokhale said by not coming properly prepared, these advocates were doing injustice to their own clients along with litigants, whose matters are listed but aren't heard because of paucity of time. "What is this going on? We see so many lawyers coming to the court unprepared. Please be well prepared henceforth. If you cannot come well prepared, we cannot afford to waste this court's time like this," Justice Mohite-Dere orally remarked. The bench pointed out that it has several death sentence confirmation cases in its roster, apart from other fixed matters and final hearing matters. But it is unable to hear the same in time because of such cases, wherein lawyers start arguing without preparing for the same and end up wasting the court's time, it said. "We are unable to hear confirmation cases, fixed matters, final hearing matters nothing because of such cases almost daily. Let us be very clear, by not coming well prepared and still arguing your case, you are not doing injustice to your own client but also to the other litigants or clients of other listed matters, that aren't taken up," the bench said.The bench clearly warned lawyers that if this situation persists, it will focus on fixed matters and final hearing cases, after the lunch break. "If this continues, we will henceforth, discharge our board in the afternoon and take up fixed matters and final hearing cases. We cannot go on like this. We are doing injustice to those matters, thus we will take them up for hearing," the bench orally said. The bench made the observations while hearing a criminal petition, wherein an advocate could not provide proper answers to the court's queries and was also not updated with the facts of the case properly. The court while taking note of the same, expressed displeasure over this conduct of some lawyers and therefore, made the observations in open court.

Bombay High Court Takes Exception To Lawyers Coming To Court 'Unprepared'

Narsi Benwal

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