Bombay High Court Asks Lawyer To Present Austin's Book To His Junior

Mumbai: An advocate on record for a petitioner was recently rapped by the Bombay High Court for blaming his junior for not informing him about the matter listed on certain dates which resulted in dismissal of appeal and directed him to gift her a book called ‘The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation' by Granville Austin.

The book provides a history of the Indian Constituent Assembly which was formed to frame Indian Constitution. It discusses how and why the members of the Assembly wrote their constitution as they did.

A division bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhayaya and Justice Arif Doctor, observed, “...it would be apposite that instead of granting costs in the conventional sense, that the learned advocate on record for the Appellant gift a copy of ‘The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation by Granville Austin’ to the learned junior Advocate.”

The HC passed the order on August 19 while hearing an interim application filed by a co-operative bank seeking restoration of its appeal that was dismissed on December 15, 2022 as none appeared on its behalf.

“We find it most unfortunate that the Appellant’s advocate on record has sought to lay the blame for nonappearance at the hands of a junior advocate, who had in fact enrolled as an advocate less than two months before the date on which the said Appeal came to be dismissed,” the judges said.

Lawyer tenders apology

Following the displeasure expressed by the court, the lawyer appearing for the co-operative bank immediately tendered an apology to the court. The lawyer said that he would remove the name of the junior lawyer from the record.

After the lawyer agreed to the court’s suggestion of presenting the book to the junior advocate, the bench allowed an interim plea to restore the appeal and disposed of the same.