Litigants must be vigilant, can't blame advocates for delays in cases: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has emphasized that litigants too have a responsibility to remain vigilant in overseeing how their cases are conducted, and cannot simply shift blame to their lawyers if there are delays in the progress of the case [Rajneesh Kumar and Another v. Ved Prakash]..A Division Bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan made the observation while refusing to condone a delay of 534 days noticed on the part of a litigant in filing an appeal."We have noticed over a period of time a tendency on the part of the litigants to blame their lawyers of negligence and carelessness in attending the proceedings before the court. Even if we assume for a moment that the concerned lawyer was careless or negligent, this, by itself, cannot be a ground to condone long and inordinate delay as the litigant owes a duty to be vigilant of his own rights and is expected to be equally vigilant about the judicial proceedings pending in the court initiated at his instance," the Court observed..The litigant should not be permitted to throw the entire blame on the head of the advocate.Supreme Court.The petitioners before the top court had initially moved the an appellate court to challenge a civil court's order in favour of their legal opponent in a civil suit.Their appeal before the first appellate court was time-barred by 534 days. The first appellate court, however, condoned the delay on the ground that litigants should not suffer on account of their lawyer's negligence.The correctness of this decision was then challenged by the petitioners' legal opponent by way of a revision plea before the High Court. This led the High Court to set aside the earlier order condoning the petitioners' delay.Aggrieved, the petitioners moved the Supreme Court seeking the condonation of the 534-day delay. .The Supreme Court, however, dismissed this plea on November 21 while observing that litigants cannot solely blame their lawyers for delays in court proceedings."It appears that the entire blame has been thrown on the head of the advocate who was appearing for the petitioners in the trial court ... The litigant should not be permitted to throw the entire blame on the head of the advocate and thereby disown him at any time and seek relief," the top court said..Advocates Aditya Dhawan, Kiran Dhawan and Chander Shekhar Ashri, appeared for the petitioners.Advocates Rajesh Gupta, Harpreet Singh and Sumit R Sharma appeared for the respondent..[Read Judgment]