Delhi High Court: In the presentappeal instituted under Clause X of Letters Patent, the appellant assailed the judgment and order dated 15-4-2025 passed by the Single Judge, whereby the writ petition challenging the orders dated 6-10-2023 and 11-11-2024 passed by the Bar Council of Delhi (‘BCD’) and Bar Council of India (‘BCI’) was dismissed. The Single Judge therein had observed that the advocates representing the opposing party had no fiduciary or professional relationship vis-a-vis the appellant.. A Division Bench of Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya, C.J.* and Tushar Rao Gedela, J., stated that that an Advocate is bound by the instructions given to him by his client and it does not form part of his duty to verify the truthfulness or veracity of such instructions.
Further, the Court pointed out that allegations made by the appellant against respondents 3 to 5 did not constitute “professional misconduct” under Section 35 of Advocates Act, 1961(‘1961 Act’). Thus, not finding any irregularity or illegality in the judgment and order passed by the Single Judge, the appeal was dismissed.
Background:
In the present case, BCD had dismissed a complaint filed by the appellant against Respondents 3, 4, and 5, who were practicing lawyers, on the ground that the appellant in had failed to establish any professional relationship between himself and the respondents. BCD had rejected the allegation that the respondents ought to have ascertained the facts with due diligence and only after verification could have contested the matter on behalf of their respective clients. The BCD had opined that the correctness of the allegations against the appellant under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, was to be decided by the Court, and, accordingly, no misconduct was made out against Respondents 3 to 5.
A revision petition had been filed by the appellant before the BCI under Section 48A of the Advocates Act, 1961, where BCD’s decision was upheld and the revision petition was dismissed. BCI in its order noted that it was the duty of the Advocate to act on the instructions of their clients and that an Advocate could not sit and make an investigation of their client’s case before representing such client in the Court of law. Further BCI also noted that an Advocate could not be prosecuted for the reason that his client’s case was false. The orders passed by BCD and BCI, respectively, became the subject matter of challenge before the Single Judge in the writ petition filed by the appellant, which was dismissed by judgment and order dated 15-4-2025, and which was then challenged by the present Letters Patent Appeal.
Case Analysis and Decision:
The Court observed that the Single Judge, while rejecting the appellant’s submissions, concurred with the reasoning provided in the BCI order. The Single Judge had further observed that the advocates representing the opposing party had no fiduciary duty toward the appellant, nor there was any professional relationship between them. The Court noted that referring to Section 35 of the 1961 Act, the Single Judge had opined that the allegations made by the appellant against respondents 3 to 5 did not constitute “professional misconduct” under Section 35 of the 1961 Act. The Single Judge had also observed that issues related to alleged perjury or document fabrication, as raised by the appellant, were already being addressed in separate proceedings under Section 340 CrPC, which were currently pending.
The Court further observed that on basis of contents of the complaint lodged by the appellant against the Respondent 3 to 5, no case of professional misconduct was made out and if such complaint was acted upon it would undermine the advocates’ duties toward their own clients.
The Courtfurther observed that an Advocate is bound by his client’s instructions and it does not form part of his duty to verify the truthfulness or veracity of such instructions especially for the reason that the assertions made by the parties before the Court in the form of pleadings or setting up a case were to be decided by the Court concerned in the proceedings and not by the lawyers representing the respective parties.
The Court thus dismissed the appeal, not finding any irregularity or illegality in the judgment and order passed by the Single Judge dated 15-4-2025 so as to call for any interference in this intra-Court appeal.
[Chand Mehra v. Union of India, 2025 SCC OnLine Del 5563, decided on 21-8-2025]
*Judgement Authored by: Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the Respondent: Bhagvan Swarup Shukla, CGSC with Vinay Kumar, Advocate for UoI.
