LAWYER & LIE

LAWYER & LIE











Mr Justice Shivnarain Dhingra of Delhi High Court should be complimented for imposing fine after detecting lie by a lawyer seeking date stating another lawyer to be in



Chandigarh



while the concerned lawyer had appeared in another case in the same court some minutes ago. Lie could not be detected if the lawyer would not appear before Justice Dhingra even though he might be arguing in other courts of Delhi High Court. Professional misconduct amongst lawyers is very common even for their own clients. It is a co-incidence that National Consumer Commission on the same date decided lawyers to be covered by section 2(1)(o) of the Consumers Protection Act.











Nothing can improve practically till court-procedures are simplified to be users’ friendly so that clients may not have to depend on lawyers for seeking certified copies of orders for which lawyers often blackmail by charging extra money as said to have been paid under-table to court-staff. System should be to automatically deliver certified copies of orders to concerned parties without any need to apply for the same on the judgement-day itself or on a fixed date mentioned in the oral judgement delivered in the court. Costs put by courts on parties are traditionally pocketed by advocates. Costs must be paid by Payees’ Account cheques/drafts in name of opposite party. Lawyer-client agreement about fees should be compulsorily put on the suit-file to avoid in-between blackmailing about fees, and incidents of obliging judges by taking free cases of their relations/friends. Faulty practice of grabbing compensation-money in accidental-cases by lawyers through pre-signed cheques of clients should be effectively checked. Misconduct of lawyers in capacity as local commissioners should attract punishment and cancellation of licence to practice.











Formality of getting documents attested by notary public and oath commissioners should be abolished making lawyers to attest for their clients. Registered legal and medical practitioners, chartered accountants, government-officers etc. can also be assigned power to attest documents. All High Court judges should be compulsorily appointed outside from their home-states to prevent their lawyer-friends trying to misuse proximity with locally appointed judges. Such reforms though appearing against privileges enjoyed by lawyers will ultimately be beneficial for lawyers themselves to ease out competition by unending stream of youngsters joining legal profession as only remedy to earn livelihood!