Lawyer should represent client's grievance, not self: Court

A lawyer has to plead the grievance of his party and not his own, a local court here has observed while rejecting a plea pertaining to alleged forcible anti-coronavirus vaccination of an accused.

The applicant, through his lawyer, had filed the application in the court seeking action against the police and doctors for forcibly vaccinating him before he was taken to a jail here. When the plea came up for hearing last week, sessions court judge S J Gharat rejected it.

The detailed court order was made available on Friday. In the order, the judge said, "I have made enquiry with the accused about his grievance of vaccination. The accused stated that he watched some video and therefore, he was not intending to take the vaccine."

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When the court asked the accused whether he brought his grievance to the notice of the concerned policeman or vaccination staff, the accused replied in the negative. Therefore, it appears that the accused did not object when the RT-PCR test and vaccination was done on him.

Hence, the contention made in the application is "devoid of any merit", the court said. In fact, it appears that he is not aware about the contents of the present application, it added. The accused claimed that after his conviction till the time of the filing of this plea, his advocate neither met him in jail nor contacted him in any manner.

The question, therefore, arises at whose instructions the application was drafted, the court said. Referring to the lawyer, who argued on behalf of the accused, the court observed that from the line of his argument it appeared that the advocate is against the vaccination.

He (lawyer) submitted that he has filed a writ petition before the high court against the decision of vaccination making compulsory. Also that the vaccine is not giving protection from coronavirus, the court said.

The court then noted that the advocate representing party has to plead the grievance of his party.

"Therefore, there should be grievance of the party and not of advocate. The provisions are available for safeguarding the right of parties," the court said.