Time has come for advocates to check genuineness of other advocates, says HC

Courts should be very slow in making adverse comments against advocates in judicial orders because legal professionals submit documents in courts only on the basis of instructions given to them by their clients or other lawyers and do not have a mechanism to cross check their genuineness, the Madras High Court has said.

Justice Anand Venkatesh made the observation while expunging certain remarks made against advocate K.R.R. Aiyyappamani, a lawyer with a standing of 18 years in the Bar, by a Mahila Court in Salem district. “This is yet another case which exposes the vulnerability of an advocate in the hands of a fraudulent client who introduces himself to be a genuine person and gives instructions to the advocate and also hands over forged documents as genuine and the advocate acts on it and proceeds to file a case and suddenly finds himself pushed to a very embarrassing situation,” he said.

He pointed out that Mr. Aiyyappamani had appeared before the Mahila Court to argue an anticipatory bail application filed by an accused booked under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act of 2012. The lawyer had accepted the brief at the instance of another individual named Ramakrishnan who had introduced himself as an advocate.

However, only during the course of hearing, the lawyer found that a birth certificate submitted through him to the court, to claim that the victim was a major, was not a genuine one. Subsequent inquiries made by him revealed that Ramakrishnan was not a lawyer at all. Hence, he immediately lodged a police complaint against Ramakrishnan.

He also withdrew his appearance from the Mahila court in the advance bail petition. Yet, the lower court had, in its order, recorded as if he apologised for the submission of a fake document. Such an observation would send a wrong message as if he had submitted the document in court despite knowing it to be a fabricated one, the lawyer claimed and sought to expunge it.

Agreeing with him, Mr. Justice Venkatesh said: “When instructions are given by another advocate, the normal conduct is to take the instructions as it is and proceed further in the matter. No one will suspect the instruction given by the another advocate. However, this case rings an alarm bell to the advocates since now the advocates will have to first satisfy themselves as to whether the advocate who is instructing them is a genuine advocate or not.”