New Delhi: Delhi High Court on Thursday noted that advocates are bo-und by the instructions of their clients and are under no legal obligation to ve-rify their truthfulness, as it is to be de-cided by the court hearing the matter.
Dismissing a complaint lodged by a man against three lawyers who ap-peared for his opponent in court, HC emphasised that the duty of the lawy-er is to submit the case as per instruc-tions, which was done in the present matter. “We may also record 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 in-structions, especially for the reason that the assertions made by the parti-es before the court in the form of plea-dings or setting up a case are to be de-cided by the learned court concerned in the proceedings and not by the la-wyers representing the respective
parties,” a bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyay and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela said. The court agreed with the conclusions of the Bar Council of Delhi (BCD) and a single-judge bench of HC that there was no misconduct by the advocates who represented the opposite party against the litigant, Chand Mehra.
On the basis of the contents of the complaint lodged by the appellant (Mehra) against the respondents, no case of professional misconduct is made out. Further, if the complaint made by the appellant is to be acted upon and proceeded with for taking action against the respondents, the same will result in undermining the duties which an advocate owes to his client,” the court pointed out.
Mehra moved HC against a 2023 BCD order that dismissed his compla-int on the grounds that he and the 3 la-wyers had no professional relations-hip as they represented the opposite party in a cheque-bounce matter.