Lawyer Blames Junior For Missing Court Date, Bombay Court Had This Response

The Bombay High Court recently expressed displeasure when a lawyer sought to blame a junior for missing a court date which resulted in the dismissal of an appeal.

The court directed the senior lawyer to gift the latter a book on the Indian Constitution as a "gesture of goodwill".

An appeal filed by Memon Co-operative Bank Ltd was dismissed on November 24, 2022, due to the absence of the bank's lawyer.

The bank then filed an application seeking restoration of the appeal.

Senior lawyer Jayesh Patel could not remain present in the court on the day when the hearing was scheduled due to an oversight by the junior advocate tasked with checking the causelist, the application said.

"We find it most unfortunate that the Appellant's Advocate on record has sought to lay the blame for non-appearance at the hands of a junior Advocate, who had in fact enrolled as an advocate less than two months before the date on which the said appeal came to be dismissed," the division bench of Chief Justice Devendra Upadhyaya and Justice Arif Doctor said in a recent order.

Allowing restoration of the appeal in the interest of justice, the bench, instead of imposing costs, directed the bank's lawyer to gift the junior lawyer a copy of `The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation' by Granville Austin.

"This, in our view, would serve as a gesture of goodwill and erase any misunderstanding or ill-will that may have occurred in the mind of the learned junior Advocate," the court said. 

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