Calcutta High Court cracks down on impersonation, forgery, fraud by advocates; directs police to probe matter

The Calcutta High Court recently directed the State police to investigate the issue of petitions being filed by persons committing fraud by impersonating themselves as advocates [Vishwanath Pradhan v. State of West Bengal]..Justice Md Nizamuddin directed the police to immediately initiate criminal proceedings by lodging First Information Reports (FIRs) and thoroughly investigating the cases in question. This, after it had observed,"This Court has taken a serious note of this practice of impersonation, forgery and fraud being committed in collusion with Advocates/fake advocates, clerks, Notary Public and there are many persons who are not coming into the picture.".On September 5, after finding that a lawyer through whom a writ petition was filed did not exist at his address given on record, the High Court had directed the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of the Crime Investigation Department (CID) to investigate the matter.The Court had also directed the Chairman of the Bar Council of West Bengal to file a report as to whether the advocate in question, Avijit Pal, was enrolled with the State Bar. The Chairman submitted a report mentioning the address and Bar Council registration number of Pal..Further, the Court was informed that a clerk, Jayanta Polley, acted as attorney of the writ petitioners for the purpose of filing these writ petitions through fake powers of attorney.Polley told the Bench that in addition to Pal, two other advocates, namely Monideepa Banerjee and Goutam Banerjee, had instructed him and paid him money to do such things. He further alleged that these two lawyers had threatened him with dire consequences like murdering him and his family members if he discloses anything in Court about all these affairs.The clerk went on to reveal that he has never seen the faces of these advocates, but that he personally knew Pal, who practises in the High Court and has a chamber as well. He also confessed that he had no valid licence to act as a clerk even at the time of signing and filing these writ petitions, since his clerk’s licence had already expired during the COVID-19 period..The Bench "specially fixed" the matter on September 26 for hearing all four cases, after directing the Kolkata Police and DIG-CID to coordinate with each other to conduct a smooth investigation."...in course of investigation they will be entitled to interrogate all the relevant persons finding of having any link with these cases and they will be entitled to have custodial interrogation of the connected person and seize any relevant document from any person who they think have any relevance in these matters and are involved in this affair and file the progress report on 26th 5 September, 2022 in all these four cases," the order stated..The Court also directed that no notary or oath administering authority in the subordinate judiciary will allow affirmation of any affidavit or certify any document without proper verification of the executants/deponents, including advocates and advocate’s clerks, without identification documents like Aadhar Card/Voter’s Identity Card/Bar Association identity card/Pan Card/Bar Council Registration document etc. It further ordered,"No document shall be allowed to be filed in this court or subordinate Courts by a clerk without verification and quoting of his licence/registration number.".Advocates Anirban Ray, TM Siddiqui, D Ghosh and V Kothari represented the State, while Advocates Anamika Pandey appeared for Pal. Advocates Sukanta Chakraborty, Navanil De, Debnath Ganguly, Aranya Saha, R Chakraborty and Subhrajit Dey represented an applicant in the case..The High Court had recently sought the Bar Council of West Bengal's suggestions in a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition seeking a direction for every petition filed before the Court to be accompanied by a self-attested copy of the Bar Council Identity Card (ID) or any other specified ID after the rise in fake advocates cases..PIL seeks every petition to be filed with copy of Bar Council ID: Calcutta High Court calls for suggestions.[Read Order]