Misconduct Towards the Court: Falsehood, Fabrication and Advising a Bribe

In one line

The heaviest punishments in this subject are for what an advocate does to the court, not to his client.

In exam wording: misconduct towards the court includes misleading it, fabricating or procuring false material, and corrupting or offering to corrupt the judicial process, and it is punished under section 35 of the Advocates Act 1961 with the gravest of the orders available under section 35(3).

Why this category is punished hardest

The reason is in the Preamble to the Bar Council rules: the advocate is an officer of the Court. A judge cannot check every authority cited, every document produced or every instruction asserted. The system works because advocates can be relied on, so an advocate who misleads the court damages something no client can restore.

That is why the punishments here run to removal from the roll for conduct that, done to a client, might attract a suspension.

Advising or arranging a bribe

This is the gravest single category, and the two cases are the two to know.

Shambhu Ram Yadav v. Hanuman Das Khatry

Shambhu Ram Yadav v. Hanuman Das Khatry, AIR 2001 SC 2509, (2001) 6 SCC 1, decided 26 July 2001 by K.T. Thomas and Y.K. Sabharwal JJ, the judgment being delivered by Sabharwal J.

Facts. An advocate appearing in a civil suit wrote to his client, Mahant Rajgiri, saying that another client of his had told him the presiding judge accepted bribes and had obtained several favourable orders from him; that if the client could influence the judge through some other gentleman that was one thing, but otherwise he should send Rs 10,000 so that through that client the suit could be got decided in his favour; and that if the client could personally win the judge over there was no need to spend money. The letter was admitted. His defence was that the judge's services had since been terminated for illegal gratification and that he had merely brought the facts to his client's knowledge to protect his interest, and that no money was in fact sent.

The course of the proceedings, which is what makes the case doubly useful. The State Bar Council held it misconduct under section 35 and suspended him for two years from 15 June 1997. On his appeal the disciplinary committee of the Bar Council of India, on 31 July 1999, enhanced the punishment and directed that his name be struck off the roll, observing that he had served as an advocate for fifty years and that it was not expected of him to indulge in the practice of corrupting the judiciary, and imposing costs of Rs 5,000. The Bar Council of India then reviewed its own order and reduced the punishment to a reprimand, on the grounds that he had merely answered a query about the judge's conduct, that he was eighty years old with a long clean record, and that permanent removal was inappropriate.