Chennai: Castigating a lawyer for deliberately trying to scandalise the court, the Madras high court has referred the matter to the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry (BCTP) to examine his conduct as to whether he should continue as member of the Bar or his membership ought to be cancelled/suspended.
The court also imposed further costs of Rs 10,000 on the advocate for wasting judicial time by filing petitions against helmet rule. Dismissing a petition from advocate R. Muthukrishnan, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana said, “We are thus unequivocally of the view that the petitioner is deliberately trying to scandalise the court and taking advantage of his age, to get away from the consequences of the misadventure. Despite this, we do think it worth for a while to go into this issue further, but, we do believe that such conduct by lawyers as officers of the court is completely unbecoming of their profession and unacceptable as norm of conduct. Instead of taking proceedings for contempt, we are of the view that we should refer the matter to the BCTP, with a copy marked to the Bar Council of India, to examine the conduct of the petitioner in this context whether he should continue on the rolls as member of the Bar or his membership ought to be cancelled/suspended”.
Originally, Muthukrishnan filed a PIL challenging a public notice issued by the Home secretary by which wearing of helmets by two-wheeler riders was made compulsory from July 1 this year and failing which all documents of the two wheeler, including driving license would be impounded.
Observing that it was a publicity stunt, the Bench on November 3 dismissed the PIL with costs of Rs 10,000. Again, Muthukrishnan filed the present petition seeking a review of the November 3 order.
The bench said, “The language of the pleadings is offensive in character and in our view, reflection of the disrespect of the petitioner towards the judicial system. That it comes from a lawyer is all the more unfortunate, albeit appearing in-person”, the Bench said.
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