Quashing the First Information Report (FIR) registered against a lawyer for obstructing a survey by revenue officials, the Madras High Court recently observed that considering the position that he holds and job that he performs, an advocate, in most of the situations, reacts boisterously.
A bench of Justice N Anand Venkatesh said, “The demeanour of an advocate will always be different from the demeanour of a layman…This is a character which is developed by an advocate by virtue of the nature of duty that he performs for his clients. The legal profession involves fighting for the rights of the clients and the advocate tends to react more aggressively even outside the courts.”
Regarding the case at hand, the single-judge bench said that it might be true that the lawyer had expressed himself more strongly to defend the rights of his client, but that by itself should not have resulted in a criminal prosecution against an advocate.
“The main intention on the part of the petitioner was not to prevent the government officials from performing their function and on the other hand, the petitioner was only attempting to safeguard the rights of his client,” the bench emphasised.
The court was dealing with a criminal original petition filed under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, to call for the records of a case registered with the police against the petitioner lawyer and quash the same.
The case against the advocate was that a complaint was given by the Revenue Inspector against him to the area’s Sub-Inspector of Police that he had picked up a quarrel and restrained the revenue officials from carrying on with their official duty when they had gone for a survey for removal of the encroachment made in the Government land.
Seeking relief, before the high court, the counsel for the advocate submitted that as on behalf of his client, a suit pertaining to the land was pending, therefore, in order to safeguard the interest of his client, the advocate had gone to the survey spot and questioned the officials.
However, unfortunately, the same was taken to be causing obstruction from performing the official duty and the advocate had also been arrayed as an accused in the case lodged by the Revenue Inspector.
The bench opined that the continuation of the investigation as against the advocate would result in abuse of process of court and the same had to be interfered by the high court.
Accordingly, the bench quashed the FIR.
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