The Supreme Court has placed before the Chief Justice of India (CJI), a matter related to the acceptance of apology tendered by the concerned Advocates, after expressing dissenting views on the issue.
The two-Judge Bench of Justice Bela M. Trivedi and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma made the divergent opinions, while hearing a Special Leave Petition (SLP) filed by one N. Eswaranathan. The petitioner, along with his lawyers- AOR P Soma Sundaram, and Advocate S. Muthukrishnan, were accused of committing Contempt of Court.
While Justice Trivedi expressed her reservations in accepting the apology, Justice Sharma said the honest and genuine, apology, coming from a penitent heart, should be accepted.
Justice Trivedi termed the matter as yet another case, in which the Advocates appearing for the petitioner were found to have misused the Process of the Court. Unfortunately, the Advocates who were supposed to be the Officers of the Court and the Champions for the cause of justice, sometimes indulged themselves into a kind of unethical and unfair practices and when caught by the Court, they tendered an unconditional apology on the specious ground of inadvertent mistake.
Once again, the Court has been called upon to discharge a very unpleasant and painful duty as the Court has noticed that the petitioner and his Advocates made a brazen attempt to take the Court for a ride by filing a vexatious petition, distracting the course of administration of justice and misusing the Process of Law, she added.
Justice Sharma noted that both the Advocates have expressed their remorse with a promise not to repeat the misconduct in future. Several eminent leaders of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), Office Bearers of the SCBA and Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association (SCAORA) have appealed to this Court for mercy which should not be ignored, he added.
Justice Sharma further pointed out that suspending an Advocate-on-Record (AOR) for a period of one month would cast a stigma on the future of the AOR.
Since the Bench could not arrive at a conclusion, it decided to place the matter before the CJI for appropriate orders.
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