Single-judge Bench of the Karnataka High Court comprising of Justice Suraj Govindaraj observed that a party/client cannot file a fraud or cheating case against his advocate merely because a favorable order was not passed in that case. Considering the seriousness of the issue, the Court said that litigants should understand that an advocate can only make the best efforts in a matter and the case would be decided on the basis of merits by the court and quashed a cheating case filed against an advocate KS Mahadevan. The Court also held that such practice would lead to disastrous consequences.

Justice Govindraj said, "Merely because a client were not to succeed in the matter and favourable orders were not passed in favour of that particular client, the said client cannot make out a case that there is a fraud which has been committed by the advocate and offence under Sections 406 and 420 of IPC which has been committed by an advocate".

"It is for all litigants to understand that an advocate can only make best efforts in the matter and the case would be decided on the basis of merits. In a adversarial system like that in our country were one party initiates a litigation against the other it is bound to happen that one will win and other will lose which is on the basis of the facts of the case and the law applicable."

The Court noted the facts of the case as “A private complaint in PCR No.30/2017 has been filed by the first respondent - complainant alleging that the petitioner has held out himself to be a very Senior Advocate in Bangalore and having connections with Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court and had represented that he could put across the complainant to such Senior Advocates who could represent the matter and obtain favourable orders. It is on that basis, various amounts were paid to the petitioner to be paid to the Advocate appearing before the Supreme Court as also to enable the petitioner to travel to Supreme Court and appear in the said matter. It is alleged that on 18.04.2016, when the matter was taken up for hearing before the Apex Court and at the end of the day when the complainant called the petitioner enquiring about the status of the matter, the petitioner did not inform him properly and as such, the complainant suspected the bonafides of the petitioner and it is on that basis a criminal complaint came to filed in the aforesaid PCR seeking for action to be taken against the petitioner under Sections 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 420 (cheating) of Indian Penal Code (IPC).”

The Court observed that "An advocate can only appear and make his best efforts in the matter. No advocate can either state or hold out that he would obtain favourable orders nor could a client believe that an Advocate will definitely obtain favourable orders just because he has made payment of the fees to the Advocate,".

The bench, therefore, quashed the proceedings pending in relation to the case pending before Judicial Magistrate First Class-II, Mangaluru, observing "No grounds have been made out in the complaint. The criminal proceedings being an abuse in the process of the Court," 

Case Details:-

WRIT PETITION NO. 54069 OF 2017 (GM-RES)

KS Mahadevan    …Petitioner

Vs.

Cyprian Menezes & Anr    …Respondent

Read the complete Judgment on the link below:-

file:///C:/Users/MAA/Downloads/WP54069-17-09-09-2022.pdf