Complaint Of Professional Misconduct Against Advocates Must Be Filed By Persons Who Have Locus To Complain: Karnataka HC
The Karnataka High Court has observed that complaints for the professional misconduct of an Advocate have to be filed by persons who have the locus to complain and have a jural relationship with such an Advocate.
A writ petition was filed under Article 227 of the Constitution seeking to quash a notice issued by the State Bar Council and a Complaint.
The Bench of Justice M Nagaprasanna observed, “This Court holds that any professional misconduct of an Advocate has to be complained by persons who have locus to complain, as the Bar Council of a State being a statutory authority is empowered to enquire into any misconduct of an Advocate and pass appropriate orders.”
Petitioner appeared in person whereas Advocates Gangadharappa A. and R Neelakanta Swamy appeared for the Respondents.
The petitioner submitted that he appeared for the decree-holders in the execution case and an appearance by itself cannot be a professional misconduct. It was alleged that the petitioner had entered into a transaction with the decree holders and he never appeared for Respondent No. 2. There was no jural relationship between the client and Advocate qua the Respondent No. 2, he submitted.
The Court relied on the judgments in Ayaaubkhan Noorkhan Pathan V. State Of Maharashtra (2013 SC), Bharat Lal Pandey V. Ramji Prasad Yadav (2009 SC), N.S. Varadachari V. Bar Council Of Tamil Nadu (2010 Madras) and R. Swaminathan V. Bar Council Of Tamil Nadu High Court Campus Chennai (2014 Madras).
It was observed that the complainant had no locus to file the complaint against the petitioner, as he was neither his Advocate nor there was any engagement of the petitioner by Respondent No. 2 at any point in time. He was the counsel who had appeared against Respondent No. 2. The complaint, at best, was maintainable by the decree holders, if there was any allegation against the petitioner and not at the instance of the Judgment Debtor, the Court said.
The Court held, “Since the issue of locus cuts at the root of the matter and the root is found to be contrary to law, all other submissions of the petitioner in-person that there should be reason to believe, for initiation of proceedings under Section 35 of the Act, need not be gone into, notwithstanding the fact that certain judgments which inter alia consider the issue of reason to believe, found in Section 35 of the Act, are noted hereinabove, as the complaint was not even maintainable at the hands of the complainant before the Bar Council. Therefore, no other contention advanced either by the petitioner or the respondent on the merit of the matter has been gone into.”
Accordingly, the Court allowed the Petition, quashed the notice issued by the Bar Council and quashed the proceedings.
Cause Title: Sri Paras Jain v. Karnataka State Bar Council And Ors.
Appearances:
Petitioner: In Person
Respondents: Advocates Gangadharappa A. and R Neelakanta Swamy