Most of the reader of this article are lawyers and law
studen
ts who are interested in becoming a litigation lawyer and appear in
court. During handling a case for the first time, a newbie lawyer can face many
difficulties due to the inexperience of the work culture of our courts. And
even the minor mistakes while doing formalities can become time- consuming and
cause more delay in the proceeding. One of such incidents I faced during
working on a case in a trial court. The case of criminal one related to section
337 of IPC and it was on the stage of Defence Witness. I was the newly hired
lawyer by the defendant and was completely unaware of the facts of the case and
its proceeding history except a few details mentioned by the client. Although
an application to summon the witnesses under section 315 CrPC was already filed
by the previous Counsel but the PF/RC was not filed. And there was a delay of
almost three months in filing the PF/RC but since that was the COVID period, so
the courts were not passing the adverse orders at that time.
I appeared in the court and pleaded that since I am new
counsel, in this case, the court should grant me more time to study the case and
let me inspect the case file of the court before filing the processing
fee. But the judge ordered that since
the filing of the processing fee is delayed a lot, I must file it within two
working days.
After the court hearing, I went to the room of the Ahlamad to
ask for the file inspection and the process fee filing but he told me to come
again on the next day because he has not got the judgement copy yet and he will
not do anything without the court's order.
So, I went again to visit him on the next working day. On
that day, I got a copy of the proceeding order and found that there is no mention
of file inspection in that order. I asked the Ahlamad regarding it and he
replied that I must first get it allowed from the court before inspecting the
file and to get it allowed, I must write an application and paste an additional
court fee on it. I wrote an application for file inspection and went to
purchase the court fee of Rs. 5/-. But that court fee was not available at the
facilitation centre, So, I purchased a ten Rupees Court fee and pasted it on
the application after confirming it from my senior that if it’s okay to do
that. Then I went inside the court to get the signature of the judge in that application,
but he was on leave and I was told by the reader to come on the next day. So,
my second day was also wasted.
Then I must skip going to that court on the next working day
because I was not feeling well due to too much pain in my body. So, I decided
to go again on the next working day. On the next working day, I reached the
court on time, there was a huge crowd outside the courtroom and people were
gathered there, waiting for their cases to be heard in that court when I went
inside and passed my application to the reader, he refused to take it and told
me to wait until the proceeding is over. So, I must wait for another two hours
just to get it signed by the judge. After all the cases were heard, I went
inside the court again and handed that application to the reader, he
immediately passed it to the judge after asking me what it is about, I told him
that I am the defence counsel in this case, and this is the application for
inspection of the mentioned case file. Then the judge signed it and I
immediately took it to the room of the Ahlamad. But his room was also packed
with lawyers who were there to get their miscellaneous works done. After
waiting for one more hour, I finally got my turn to talk to the Ahlamad and
told him to give the case file to me for inspection after handing him the
application. He told me to wait for more than a few minutes and then he
searched and took out the file from the almirah, noted down the timing of
inspection and then told me to sit down and inspect it in front of him.
I investigated the file and noted down the details that I
was required to write the application for summoning the witnesses for DW. Then
I handed the file over to him. He again noted down the time on a register and
then I went out.
Now I had to prepare another application and get it signed
by my client. So, I went back home, drafted that application, and called my
client to sign on it. And on the next day, I again went to the same ahlamad to
submit it along with the process fee form. He checked the document and then
told me that the case number mentioned in the application is wrong which the
witness needs to bring with him. I was a little shocked again and told him that
the same case number was written in the file that I read yesterday, but he said
that they will not bring the file if I write the wrong information about it, so
I must mention the right case number to get the summon properly executed. So, I
again must go to the room of another ahlamad to know the right case number of
that file which he needed to bring for DW. But the room of that Ahlamad was
locked because it was just a few minutes after lunchtime when I reached there.
It was difficult to find the proper case number through the website as I
already tried that earlier. But while sitting there, waiting for that Ahlamad,
I again tried to search that case detail online by putting whatever information
I had on that case. And I got successful in that. I noted down the correct
details and corrected them in the application and immediately went back to the
room of the Ahlamad to file the PF. I gave him the corrected application and
the PF form but then he started telling me that he cannot take the PF form as
the court had given me the time of only two days, but I am four days late! I
felt a little terrible at that time, then I told him politely that 'Sir, I am
the new counsel in this case, and I was not properly aware of the details of
the witnesses that were called so I had to inspect the file as I do not want to
make any mistake. Due to doing all those formalities, I got late.' After a
little bit of argument, he finally accepted my application and gave me back a
slip of the PF form after signing on it.
