Advocate demanding exorbitant fees ?
Advocate not present for the hearing ?
Advocate going on with frequent adjournments without consulting you ?
Advocate mis-behaving with you/ your wife/ family ?
Advocate harming your genuine interests and working against you ?
Advocate hand-in-glove with opponent's advocate ?
Advocate demanding more money to issue you the NOC ?
Advocate spoiling your case ?
For what-so-ever reason, are you dis-satisfied with your advocate ?
Then without even assigning the reason, you can plainly appoint another advocate.
It is your legal right. It is an ABSOLUTE RIGHT and NOT CONDITIONAL.
This recent judgement, less than 18 months ago, by the Honourable High Court of Karnataka, re-inforced just the same, as guaranteed to you by the Honourable Constitution - Your legal right to be represented by an advocate of your choice.
Your advocate's NOC is NOT required.
But what if your advocate refuses to return your file/brief ?
This judgement attached, addresses that situation too. It is a beautiful judgement. ______MFA No.6526/2013 -1- IN THE HIGH COURT OF KARNATAKA AT BENGALURU DATED THIS THE 2ND DAY OF DECEMBER 2016 PRESENT THE HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE H.G.RAMESH AND THE HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE JOHN MICHAEL CUNHA MISCELLANEOUS FIRST APPEAL NO.6526/2013 (LAC) O R D E R H.G.RAMESH, J.: 1. Whether vakalatnama filed by a new advocate is to be accepted in the absence of ‘no objection’ of the advocate already on record, is the short question for consideration in this case. ____
What if your advocate says you have not paid him his fees ?
The court says to the advocate " for that, you follow the due procedure of law, by filing a recovery suit against your client ".
Now, if your advocate has received even one rupee from his/her client and it is evidenced by a receipt/acknowledgement/online transfer's bank statement, the client can prove his/her intention of service after paying fees for which partial-receipt was issued by the advocate.
Now, if your advocate has not received even one rupee from his/her client, then a suit itself cannot be filed against his/her client since if the advocate says client has not paid, client can say that he/she has paid.
What if you want to dis-engage your advocate and argue the matter by yourself, party in person ?
Well, just a simple affidavit mentioning the fact that for your case number "xxx", you have dis-engaged your advocate's services and are arguing the matter by yourself, party in person and in the future you may even appoint an advocate to represent you.
Add the verification-affidavit to this and submit it in the open court and with a copy to the registry. You are on your own. Your advocate would not even know that you have dis-engaged him/her.
So, to summarize, the judiciary is undergoing a silent churn and many are hopeful that the purity and sanctity of the profession would eventually return.
The word ' many ' here refers to the advocates who themselves are unhappy with the wrong elements having entered the profession, since, no matter what we complain about, the fact remains that many advocates are of the normal family-type and go about their profession as any other person.
But the talk in Bangalore among seniors is that they themselves find many of the advocates enrolled after the year 2002, a big source of professional risk to the institution.
I do not know whether this is true or false, but I am observing many advocates expressing dis-pleasure over erosion of ethics, in the profession.
This judgement is very useful, especially to those who have been victimized by the unethical advocates.
Society is fast changing and the profession too is witnessing lot of positivity.
