Litigants can't be permitted to throw entire blame on advocate for delay: Supreme Court

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has said that a litigant owes a duty to be vigilant of his own rights and is expected to be equally alert about the judicial proceedings pending in the court initiated at his instance and he 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.

A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan rejected a plea by Rajneesh Kumar and others against the Himachal Pradesh High Court's order of 2019. The High Court allowed the civil revision application filed by the original defendant or counter claimant and thereby quashed and set aside the order passed by the District Judge, Shimla condoning the delay of more than 534 days in filing the appeal by the petitioners herein in a civil suit.

Upon hearing the counsel for the parties, the bench, in its November 21 order, said 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.

"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," the bench said.

The court here said even if it assumed 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 litigant, therefore, 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 bench said.