The Bombay High Court canceled a criminal case against a lawyer accused of filing a fake tax receipt for bail. The Court said lawyers act based on client instructions and found no wrongdoing by the advocate.
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MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court canceled a criminal case that was filed against a lawyer who was accused of giving a fake tax receipt to get bail for her client. The Court said that clients of lawyers have a lot of control over how an advocate does their work.
A division bench of Justice Anil S. Kilor and Justice Pravin Patil from the Nagpur Bench said that many times, a lawyer acts based on what the client tells them to do.
The Court clearly said,
“A considerable amount of direct control is exercised by the client over the manner in which an advocate renders his services during the course of his employment.”
Talking more about what an advocate’s role is, the Court said,
“The Advocate represents the client before the court and conducts proceedings on behalf of the client. He is the only link between the court and the client. He is expected to follow the instructions of his client rather than substitute his judgment.”
In this case, the lawyer had submitted several documents in the Court while asking for bail for her client. One of these documents was a property tax receipt that was used to support the bail surety.
Later, an inquiry found that this property tax receipt was fake and was not issued by the concerned gram panchayat.
After this, a staff member from the Court filed a complaint. Based on that, a criminal case was started at Ram Nagar Police Station in Chandrapur under different sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS).
The police and prosecution said that the lawyer had fooled the Court by giving a fake document. However, the Court noticed that there was no claim that the lawyer herself made the fake document or that she had worked together with the person giving the surety to create the forgery.
The Court made it very clear by saying,
“It is not the case of the prosecution that the applicant prepared such a fake certificate or (s)he is involved in such act with the surety who produced the said certificate. Thus, considering the role of Advocate in such matters, particularly towards the court and his client, we are of the opinion that in the present matter whatever documents the client had given to her to submit in the court, the applicant submitted the same as per the instructions of her client,”
-the Court observed.
After looking at the whole situation, the High Court found that there was no real case against the advocate. So, it canceled the first information report (FIR) filed against her and finished the application.
Advocate N. S. Khandewale represented the applicant-lawyer in this matter.
Additional Public Prosecutor Nikhil Joshi appeared for the State.
CASE TITLE:
Sarika Narayan Tembhare vs. State of Maharashtra and anr.
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