Don't blame lawyer, litigant responsible for his case: Delhi HC

The bench said it was easy to file a complaint with the bar council seeking an explanation on the delay in filing of a plea, but the litigant must show 'acceptable and convincing' material of being in touch with the lawyer during the entire period besides proving that he was misled.

New Delhi: Strongly disapproving the practice of blaming the lawyer for negligence or delay in approaching court, the Delhi High Court has said a litigant does not abandon all responsibility to keep track of his matter after engaging a lawyer.

A bench of Justices C Hari Shankar and Anoop Kumar Mendiratta said it was easy to file a complaint with the bar council seeking an explanation on the delay in filing of a plea, but the litigant must show "acceptable and convincing" material of being in touch with the lawyer during the entire period besides proving that he was misled.

"Practice of shifting to the shoulders of the counsel, the negligence in approaching the court. It is easy, in such circumstances, to file a complaint before the bar council and seek to explain the delay. We deprecate this. A litigant does not abandon all responsibility to keep track of a matter, once it is entrusted to counsel," the bench said in its judgment on December 18.

The court disapproved the "unwholesome practice" of shifting the blame on the counsel who had been dealing with the matter, saying they were tardy, negligent, or indolent.

The bench was dealing with a challenge against a Central Administrative Tribunal order after a delay of six years in a service dispute.

The petitioner, who claimed to belong to a socially unprivileged and uneducated family in a "remote village" of Sohna, sought the court to condone the delay on the ground that after the dismissal of his case he approached a counsel, who misled him by giving fake dates.

Since the petitioner was said to be suffering from financial hardships, he was unable to pursue the case personally on the dates given by the lawyer and when he visited the lawyer in August, he found no case was filed in the high court and lodged a complaint in the district bar association, Gurgaon.

Dismissing the petition, the court said it was not satisfied with his explanation.

"The court has to be satisfied that, in fact, the counsel has been misleading the client, and that this explains the entire period of delay in approaching the court. Of course, if the court is so satisfied, and an innocent litigant has been led up the garden path by an unscrupulous counsel, the court would not allow injustice to be done, and would, in an appropriate case, condone the delay," it said.