The Delhi High Court recently deprecated the practice of blaming lawyers alone for delays by litigants in approaching courts for legal remedies [Rahul Mavai vs Union Of India & Ors.]..A Bench of Justices C Hari Shankar and Anoop Kumar Mendiratta emphasised that litigants too have a duty to pursue their cases diligently."We emphatically disapprove of this practice of shifting, to the shoulders of the Counsel, the negligence in approaching the Court. It is easy, in such circumstances, to file a complaint before the Bar Council and seek to explain away the delay. We deprecate this. A litigant does not abandon all responsibility to keep track of a matter, once it is entrusted to Counsel," the Court said..The Court made the observation while refusing to entertain a petition filed after a six-year delay. The litigant sought to explain the delay by saying that his lawyer was negligent in pursuing the case. The Court rejected this explanation. “We also disapprove the unwholesome practice of seeking to explain away inordinate delay and laches on approaching the Court on the mere ground that the Counsel who had been dealing with, or entrusted, the matter, was tardy, negligent, or indolent,” it added..A litigant does not abandon all responsibility to keep track of a matter once it is entrusted to counsel.Delhi High Court.The case before the Court concerned the eligibility of a litigant to join a government post. His 2016 plea was initially dismissed in 2018 by a tribunal, after which he claimed that he engaged a lawyer in Delhi to file a challenge before the High Court. He added that he interacted with the lawyer on several dates over phone and that his lawyer gave him false information about the progress of the case. He said that he was unable to personally attend to the case owing to financial hardships. He further alleged that he came to know only in August this year that his case was never filed before the High Court and that he has since lodged a complaint against the lawyer with the District Bar Association. He, therefore, urged the High Court to condone the delay in approaching it with his writ petition. The Court, however, refused to do so."The explanation in para 4 of the writ petition can hardly explain six years of delay in approaching the Court," it said. .The Court clarified that if a lawyer has actually been negligent, the litigant would be required to produce convincing material to prove such negligence. “The litigant would have to place, on record, material to indicate that she, or he, has been in touch with the Counsel during the entire period of delay, and that the Counsel has been misleading her, or him. This material must be acceptable, and convincing. The Court has to be satisfied that, in fact, the Counsel has been misleading the client, and that this explains the entire period of delay in approaching the Court,” it said.However, the Court was not convinced by the litigant's claims regarding his lawyer's alleged negligence in this case. Therefore, the Court dismissed the petition on the ground of unexplained delay..Litigants must be vigilant, can't blame advocates for delays in cases: Supreme Court.Advocate MK Gaur appeared for the litigant.Government panel counsel Vinay Yadav and Vedansh Anand and advocates Sachin Saraswat, Abhinav M Goel and Ansh Kalra appeared for the respondent-authorities. .[Read order]
