Lawyer ‘appears’ in vest, irked Rajasthan HC judge adjourns hearing on a bail plea

Joychen Joseph | TNN | Updated: Apr 26, 2020, 07:02 IST

Representative image

JAIPUR: A repeat of taking the judicial job a bit too casually irked a Rajasthan High Court judge so much that he abruptly adjourned the hearing on a bail plea after the petitioner’s counsel “appeared” before the court wearing only a vest during a video hearing of a case on Saturday .
The single judge bench of Justice Sanjeev Prakash promptly issued its order, saying: “Keeping in view that the petitioner’s counsel was not in proper uniform, this matter is adjourned (till May 5).”
After the nationwide lockdown was imposed in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic, the Rajasthan high court decided to hear urgent matters only through video conferencing. Since then, this is the second such incident of “misconduct” by lawyers.
Wrongly accused of not following the dress code: Lawyer
“Though the court is functioning through video conferencing, the lawyers must appear in proper uniform and the decorum of the court has to be maintained. The Advocates Act provides for lawyers to wear uniform while pleading a case for their clients,” the judge said. The judge also observed that according to the Advocates Act, lawyers have to mandatorily wear their court uniform even when they are meeting clients. The lawyer, Ravindra Kumar Paliwal told TOI, “After seeing my client’s case listed for the day, I was waiting for a call from the court in my uniform. But I did not receive any call. I only came to know about the incident when I saw the court order. Perhaps the court staff had connected the [video] call to a wrong person.”
Paliwal said he had applied for revision of the order because “I am wrongly accused of not following the dress code”. Earlier too, a similar incident had happened, much to the embarrassment of the same judge.