The Hon’ble High Court of Madhya Pradesh High Court has held that a litigant cannot plead that if his lawyer had not given correct legal advice to him/her, he should not suffer from adverse orders.
Before the Hon’ble High Court, in an appeal proceeding against a trial court order which had decreed a suit for declaration of title and specific performance of the contract, an interim application was preferred for sending an agreement to sell to a handwriting expert for verification of the signatures of the appellant.
Court held:
A litigant cannot plead that since his lawyer had not given correct legal advice to him, therefore, he should not suffer.
The counsel for the appellants’ argued before the Hon’ble Court that the parties are rural villagers and they are not aware of the technicalities of law and if it was not advised by their advocate. It was a lapse on the part of the advocate in not giving proper and correct advise, the party to a litigant should not suffer.
Dismissing the contentions of the appellant’s, Hon’ble Justice GS Ahluwalia had observed: “Advocates claim themselves to be professionals having knowledge of the law. They are law graduates. They cannot claim that they were not having knowledge of the law. The Advocates cannot say, that the party should not suffer because they were not technically sound.”
The Hon’ble court also held that since there are two parties in a matter, if a very lenient view is adopted by ignoring the mistake of an advocate, then it would always adversely affect the rights of the other litigant also. The court observed “If a litigant feels that he has been cheated by his Counsel by not giving proper legal advice, then the said litigant has remedy, against his lawyer, under the law of the land, but to the detriment of the interest of the other litigant, no leniency can be shown to a litigant on the ground that the Counsel engaged by such litigant was not professionally competent,” the court said.
Read Order here
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