'Unintentional Mistake': Supreme Court Remarks In "Mr Put Mine, Advocate" Matter

The Supreme Court, in suo-moto proceedings initiated in the matter of an Advocate whose name was recorded as “Mr. Put Mine, Advocate” in the record of proceedings, remarked that the incident was an unintentional mistake.

The incident garnered a lot of attention as a picture of the record of proceedings was widely circulated on WhatsApp and other social media platforms. The bench comprising Justice Krishna Murari and Justice Sanjay Karol noted that while the said error "caused lot of embarrassment to this (Supreme) Court", the mistake was unintentional "and due to an inadvertence without any motive or mala fide intention."

The Advocate on Record, whose name was recorded as "Mr Put Mine", appeared before the Apex Court along with Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi and Senior Advocate K.V. Viswanathan. Both of them submitted that the error was caused on account of unintentional mistake committed by the clerk of the Advocate on Record in forwarding the WhatsApp message received from the Advocate who wanted his name to be recorded in the Record of Proceeding. The court noted that-

"The message received by the Clerk on WhatsApp was “Put Mine” though actually what he wanted to communicate was that his name be also recorded in the proceeding. Inadvertently, the message as received was forwarded and put in portal appearance online and proceedings were generated with the name “Mr. Put Mine, Advocate”. Accordingly, the Court Officer recorded the same as generated in record of proceedings."

The bench, while noting that the Advocate in question was a young lawyer who had tendered an unqualified apology for the embarrassment caused to the Apex Court, stated that the mistake was bonafide. Accordingly, it accepted the apology of the lawyer and stated that no further action of any kind was warranted either against the Advocate on Record, Clerk or the Court Officers. The matter was then closed both on judicial as well as administrative side.

Case Title: Ravindra Shah v State of Maharashtra | Diary No(s). 10560/2023

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