Ghost litigant, mystery lawyers and fake deal take SC for a ride

NEW DELHI: A litigant managed to get a favourable order from Supreme Court after he propped up a "ghost" opponent who told the court that he had compromised with the petitioner in a land dispute, which became the basis for SC for quashing orders passed by a Muzaffarpur trial court and Patna HC against the litigant in the matter.

Five months later, the real opponent appeared and told the court that he had neither compromised with the petitioner nor engaged any lawyer to represent him before SC. It also came to light that the lawyer who allegedly represented the fake party does not practice law any more and he was even not aware of the case.

Facing the tricky situation of who had appeared before the court on that day and who had placed the 'settlement agreement' that led to passing of the order, a bench of Justices P S Narasimha and Joymalya Bagchi directed its registry to hold an inquiry and file a report within three weeks. Making it clear that the court cannot be taken for a ride, the bench said that it would order lodging of an FIR, if needed.

SC had in Dec passed the order after the 'compromise agreement' was placed before it and the order sheet of that day mentioned the names of four advocates who had appeared for the alleged fake respondent, including advocate-on-record (AOR) J M Khanna and his daughter Shefali Khanna. In this case, a caveat was filed by the fake respondent due to which notice was not issued by the court which would have been served on the real respondent and he would have come to know about the pending case.

The real respondent, who is based in Muzaffarpur in Bihar, came to know about the SC's verdict when his son-in-law stumbled upon it on the SC website and he rushed to the apex court. Advocates Gyanant Singh and Abhisek Rai, appearing for him, told the bench that the order was obtained by means of fraud, deception and calculated suppression of truth and it should be recalled forthwith.

During the hearing, a lawyer appearing for AOR Khanna told the court that he is now 80-years-old and he had not been practising law for the last few years and expressed surprise how his name cropped up in the case. His daughter also told the bench that she also did not appear in the case on that day.

"The petitioner has not only acted in violation of legal and ethical norms but has also committed a fraud upon this court, which, if not rectified, will embolden such mala fide litigants to continue their deceitful practices," the respondent said. Allowing his plea, the bench withdrew its Dec order and ordered a probe.

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