The Madras High Court Bench here has said that it cannot be blamed for dismissing cases on merits after perusing materials available on record if the litigants’ counsel fail to appear during boycott of court proceedings by lawyers.
A Division Bench of Justices Nooty Ramamohana Rao and S.S. Sundar made the observation while refusing to entertain a review application against dismissal of a petition to condone delay of 411 days in preferring a writ appeal.
“We do not appreciate the practice of lawyers staying away from Court work on one pretext or the other and then move an application for review of an order passed by the court after proceeding with judicial work and perusing available papers.
“If the Court was denied the assistance of professionals at the first instance of hearing, the fault is not that of the Court. Hence, whatever material that is available on record has been perused and orders are passed,” the judges said.
They also criticised the lawyer for “taking advantage” of the fact that the court had gone through the merits of the matter and moving a review application seeking to make out a fresh case than what had been really made out at the writ appeal stage.
