Advocate Asks Clerk To Add His Name In Appearance, Clerk Adds “Mr. Put Mine, Advocate”: Supreme Court Accepts Apology
|The Supreme Court, while accepting the unqualified apology of an Advocate for an inadvertent and bona fide mistake, has closed a suo moto proceeding initiated by it, both on the judicial as well as the administrative side. The proceeding was initiated after the name of one of the Advocates of the petitioner in a case was recorded as “Mr. Put Mine, Advocate", based on inputs entered into the online appearance portal.
It was submitted on behalf of the Advocate that it happened due to an unintentional mistake committed by the clerk of the AOR in forwarding the WhatsApp message received from the Advocate who wanted his name to be recorded in the Record of Proceedings of March 17, 2023. The actual intended message “Put Mine” was meant to communicate that his (Advocate's) name also is to be recorded. However, the message received was submitted as it is to the online portal. Thereby the name appeared as “Mr. Put Mine, Advocate”.
The Bench took note of the fact that the advocate was a young lawyer, and had tendered an unqualified apology for the embarrassment caused.
A Division Bench comprising Justice Krishna Murari and Justice Sanjay Karol noted in its order that “This error in recording of the proceedings of the said date has caused lot of embarrassment to this Court as the same has been widely circulated on WhatsApp and other social media”.
The Bench after considering the submissions further observed that, “In the facts and circumstances put forward by the Learned Senior Counsel appearing, there appears to be no mala fide intention on the part of any of the learned Advocate or the clerk or the Court Officer”.
Senior Advocates Mukul Rohatgi, K.V. Viswanathan and V. Mohana appeared on behalf of the petitioner before the Court. Advocate-on-Record Anand Dilip Landge appeared for the respondents.
The two senior counsel vehemently requested the Court to accept the apology.
“We accept the apology. We further make it clear that once the mistake was unintentional and due to an inadvertence without any motive or mala fide intention, and we have accepted the apology tendered, no further action of any kind is warranted either against the Advocate on Record, Clerk or the Court Officers”, the Court said.
Cause Title: Ravindra Shah v. State of Maharashtra & Anr.
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