The Allahabad high court on Wednesday issued a show cause notice of contempt to a lawyer who got at least two of his clients out on bail by hiding the fact that their earlier bail pleas had been rejected by another bench of the court.
Hearing the bail cancellation pleas by the state, justice Dinesh Kumar Singh took strong exception to the lawyer’s attempt to hoodwink the constitutional court by concealment of facts regarding the denial of bail to his clients through earlier orders.
The court also ordered the immediate arrest of the accused, for whom advocate Parmanand Gupta had appeared and secured favourable orders.
Putting in abeyance the August orders by which the accused were released on bail, justice Singh noted that the orders have been obtained by playing fraud and misleading the court.
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“The State is directed to arrest the accused-respondent forthwith, if he has been released on bail and put him behind bars,” the court said in two similarly worded orders.
It added that the two instances may not be the “solitary” cases and advocate Gupta grossly mis-conducted himself against the Bar Council Rules, professional ethics and is unbecoming of the officer of the court.
{{/usCountry}}It added that the two instances may not be the “solitary” cases and advocate Gupta grossly mis-conducted himself against the Bar Council Rules, professional ethics and is unbecoming of the officer of the court.
{{/usCountry}}“He (Gupta) had obtained several similar orders by concealing the material aspect of the matter that earlier another Bench of this Court had rejected the bail application of the accused persons,” lamented the court.
It noted: “Therefore, prima facie, he (Gupta) is guilty of playing fraud with the court and interfering in the course of justice by misleading the court by concealing the very material fact of rejection of the bail by another bench for obtaining favourable orders in favour of the accused. He has made efforts to pollute the stream of justice by his highly unprofessional conduct.”
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Justice Singh sought a response from advocate Gupta as to why his entry to the high court be not barred to protect the dignity and integrity of the high court.
While one of the accused was booked for kidnapping and abduction of a 15-year-old girl, the other was arrested on charges of cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy, theft, dishonestly receiving stolen property and disposing it among other relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Their earlier bail pleas were rejected in February 2021.
Instead of challenging the rejection orders in appeal, Gupta, according to the order, filed fresh bail pleas before another bench of the high court without disclosing the fate of previous petitions.
The matter would be heard next on November 17.