Apex Court While Granting Bail To Accused Directs His Advocate Not To Create Hurdles In Trial Or Decline To Work After Court Hours
While granting bail to a person, the Apex Court directed the Advocate appearing for the Accused in the Trial Court to fully cooperate with the Trial Court and not to create any hurdles in the way of early disposal of the case. The Court did so after noticing that the Trial Court, during the cross examination of a witness, had recorded objectionable conduct of the Advocate of the Accused.
The Bench of Justice Abhay S Oka and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan observed, “Though we are granting bail, we are making it very clear that the advocate appearing for the appellant has to fully cooperate with the Trial Court for early disposal of the case. The advocate will not create any hurdles in the way of early disposal of case and cooperate with the Trial Court. If the Trial Court wants to conduct the proceedings beyond the usual court hours, the advocate should not decline to work after the court hours. The learned counsel appearing for the appellant states that the said advocate is present in the Court today and he assures the Court to render all possible assistance to the Trial Court and that he will not adopt any dilatory tactics and will cooperate for early disposal of the case.”
Advocate Rishi Malhotra appeared for the Appellant and Advocate Siddharth Dharmadhikari appeared for the Respondent.
The Appellant had undergone incarceration for a period of more than ten years and the State wanted to examine six more official witnesses in a case pending before the Special Court for the offences under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crimes Act (MCOCA),1999. The Court held, “Considering the way trial has progressed and the fact that the High Court has kept on extending the time for disposal of the case, we find that now incarceration of the appellant cannot continue. As noted earlier, he has already undergone incarceration for more than 10 years.”
The Court also apprised, “Today, our attention is invited by the learned senior counsel appearing for the respondent no.1 to what is recorded by the trial court during the cross examination of PW-21. The objectionable conduct of the advocate appointed by the appellant has been recorded by the learned Judge. There is no reason for us, at this stage, to disregard or disbelieve what the learned trial Judge has observed about the conduct of the advocate representing the appellant.”
Accordingly, the Court directed that the Appellant should be produced before the Court within one week from the date of order and shall be enlarged on bail till the disposal of the case.
Cause Title: Yogesh Narayan Raut v. The State of Maharashtra
Appearances:
Appellant: Advocate Rishi Malhotra.
Respondent: Advocates Siddharth Dharmadhikari, Aaditya Aniruddha Pande, Bharat Bagla, Sourav Singh, Aditya Krishna, Preet S Phanse, Adarsh Dubey and Yamini Singh
