P&H High Court Imposes ₹1 Lakh Cost On Lawyer For Concealing Previous Order In Second Anticipatory Bail Application Of A Murder Accused

In the instant case, the lawyer and the accused-petitioner concealed a previous order of the High Court dated August 17, 2022, where he took an undertaking to surrender before the Trial Court within a period of one week, pursuant to which a direction was issued that no coercive steps shall be taken him and in case he surrenders and files an application for bail, same shall be considered by the trial Court expeditiously. The petitioner simply made a reference to the withdrawal of his bail application on account of the fact that criminal revision is pending and proceedings before the trial Court petition has been stayed and therefore urged the maintainability of second petition on that account alone.

Accordingly, a bench of Justice Sandeep Moudgil observed, “I am of the considered view that the second anticipatory bail application is not maintainable and the petition not only deserves dismissal of the same but exemplary costs needs to be imposed so that no one could dare to take the Courts for a ride. However, a costs of Rs.1,00,000/- is imposed upon the learned counsel for the petitioner, which is to be deposited in the account of Punjab and Haryana High Court Lawyers’ Welfare Fund”.

Advocate Prashant Bansal appeared for the petitioner.

The accused was alleged for the offences under Sections 148, 149, 323, 302, 324 and 506 IPC. The Court noted that the petitioner made a glaring attempt to mislead the Court by concealing the fact of an order dated August 17, 2022 which the accused did not comply with. The direction in the order was to surrender within a period of one week, however, before the Court, the accused took an incorrect plea that since the proceedings before the trial Court after summoning under Section 319 CrPC, were stayed as the stay was granted to the petitioner only on October 28, 2022.

“Till then there was more than 2 ½ months time for the petitioner to surrender and comply before the trial Court probably on account of which he would have applied for regular bail and the High Court would have been lenient and fair enough to direct the trial Court to decide the said regular bail application expeditiously as far as possible within a period of three days”, the bench noted.

However, the petitioner in another attempt still evaded the process of law and subsequently withdrew the anticipatory bail application, though the Court had then took a lenient view while accepting the excuse that due to some miscommunication (which the Court herein referred as ‘lame’) the August order could not complied with.

Resultantly, the bench noted, “…the factum has been concealed in the instant petition and there is neither any averment made in the pleading nor order dated 17.08.2022 has been annexed with the petition which leaves no doubt in the mind of the Court that the present petition is mischeivous, malicious and contemptuous act on the part of the litigant who is already facing criminal trial putting a seal on his conduct and criminal tendency particularly considering the offence under Section 302 daring enough to make such fraudulent act without disclosing the true and correct facts. Law will come to the rescue of those, who come to the Court with clean hands and show their antecedents to be bona fide”.

Cause Title: Gulab Singh v. State Of Haryana And Another [Neutral Citation: 2023:PHHC:136191]