Murdered briefs, “laughable” orders & more – Read Justice Nandrajog’s latest judgment

The Delhi High Court’s Justice Pradeep Nandrajog has made the headlines, once again. The judge, or rather his judgments, have a tendency to create some amount of controversy, be it lambasting a senior counsel, or containing plagiarised content (placed there by an intern)..And the latest salvo, or rather string of salvos, is no different..The learned judge, who will retire from Delhi High Court in 2020, pulls no punches while ruling over an appeal in a civil suit filed to recover dues from a property transaction gone bad..Delivered on February 23 this year, Justice Nandrajog’s judgment has not only gone after senior counsel SC Maheshwari, but also critiques the approach adopted by one of his brother judges when sitting in a Single Bench..Although the convoluted facts make for interesting reading by themselves, it is the comments peppered throughout the judgment that particularly stand out..Within the first two paragraphs, the Bench (which includes Justice Mukta Gupta) reveals its general mood..“The record of CS(OS) 2457/2009 has left us sad and filled with pain. One could not have imagined that the learned counsel who appeared for the defendants could have fallen so low in the understanding of the procedures of the law, more so when defendant No.2 himself is a lawyer of standing…..We would only say that when representation by a counsel falls to such abyss of depth, that the trial ceases to be adversarial, the Court would have to come to the rescue of the client…”.Evidently, the High Court is nonplussed with the methods adopted by the senior counsel as well as his daughter-in-law, both of whom have been impleaded in the civil suit. After a series of applications, and appeals, the judge notes that,.“Strange applications were filed and strange oral pleas were made. It all commenced when a counsel engaged at the instance of Sh.S.C.Maheshwari, Senior Advocate, to defend defendant No.1, filed IA No.6535/2010 in which the prayer made was that the previous counsel engaged by defendant No.1 should be discharged.”.It was an IA that resulted in great confusion, eventually leading Justice Nandrajog to “wonder at the legal knowledge shown by Sh.K.B.Upadhyay”, the lawyer for the legal heirs of the first defendant. That is not all..“So utter was the confusion, the order sheet reveals that the learned Joint Registrar, and regretfully even the learned Single Judges before whom the file was placed, remained clueless.”.This general sentiment pervades the entire judgment. For example,.“The reason for our pain and anguish is that the record of the suit and the orders passed therein, some of which are laughable. The orders warrant a cry of anguish to be made for being heard by those who are a part of the adjudicatory system. The system is collapsing.”.It is a collapse that needs to be stymied, starting with strict action against negligent lawyers..“Time has come to make learned counsel personally liable for cost if it is found that the negligence by the lawyer is of a kind where, as a figure of speech, one can say that the lawyer has murdered the brief.”.In the end though, Justice Nandrajog dismisses the appeal without imposing any costs. Whether the parties choose to appeal against this judgment, or at least against the comments made therein, remains to be seen..Read the entire judgment below.