LI Network
Published on: 03 September 2023 at 14:10 IST
The Bombay High Court, while addressing an interim application requesting the reinstatement of a previously dismissed appeal due to non-appearance, admonished an advocate who attempted to attribute the non-appearance to a junior advocate.
Instead of imposing conventional costs, the court directed the advocate to gift a copy of ‘The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation by Granville Austin’ to the junior advocate.
The Division Bench, consisting of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Arif S. Doctor, expressed their disappointment with the appellant’s advocate on record for shifting the blame onto a junior advocate who had enrolled as an advocate less than two months before the appeal’s dismissal.
The junior advocate was even made to submit an affidavit stating that the inadvertence was her fault.
Case Background:
A commercial appeal was dismissed on December 15, 2022, due to non-appearance on behalf of the appellant.
The appellant filed the current application, seeking reinstatement, and argued that the junior advocate responsible for monitoring the board failed to inform the appellant’s advocate about the case scheduled on the weekly board from December 15, 2022, to December 16, 2022.
The High Court expressed its displeasure with this approach, and the counsel representing the applicant promptly apologized to the court.
It was also submitted that the appellant had diligently pursued the appeal and requested another chance to prosecute it.
The court, in its order, noted that justice would be served by restoring the appeal and granting the appellant one more chance to prosecute it. However, instead of conventional costs, the court directed the appellant’s advocate on record to gift a copy of ‘The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation by Granville Austin’ to the junior advocate whose name was mentioned in the application.
The court believed that this gesture of goodwill would help resolve any misunderstandings or ill will that may have arisen in the mind of the junior advocate. Consequently, with these observations, the interim application was allowed and disposed of.
