Judgment day for fake lawyers
This has been an important year for the legal fraternity here,considering that five allegedly fake lawyers were arrested in the district.
2 min read
This has been an important year for the legal fraternity here,considering that five allegedly fake lawyers were arrested in the district. As a precautionary measure,principal district and sessions judge Anant Badar had to issue directives to magistrates to keep a check on bogus lawyers.
The series of arrests began with Mahendra Kawachale (39),a criminal lawyer from Mundhwa who practised in the district and sessions court as well as the High Court. He was arrested on April 24 following a complaint by his client. Kawachale has fought 49-odd cases in the last two years and filed over 50 petitions in the HC. He was the defence lawyer in the Jyotikumari Choudhary rape-and-murder case,opposite special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam. He has 21 cases of cheating against him in Pune and Solapur. The Bar council of Maharashtra and Goa (BCMG) found that his law degree was fake and that he started practising even before he obtained his sanad,or an enrolment licence,based on a bogus law degree certificate.
This was followed by the arrest of Uddhav Kshetrapale on September 23. He was practising on the civil and criminal side and had allegedly duped his clients of at least Rs 5 lakh. He was arrested after lawyers got suspicious when they saw Kshetrpale was arguing before a magistrate without his black coat. It was found that he did not have a law degree or sanad.
On October 1,Anil Kawale (30),practising in the debts recovery tribunal (DRT),was arrested. Police inquiry revealed that Kawale,an HSC-pass,had not only fought over 400 DRT cases,but was also on the legal panel of many banks including State Bank of India. Pune Bar Association (PBA) member Sunil Jagtap had filed a complaint against him. On October 3,Mangala Rathod (43) and Sandesh Shivsharan (45) were arrested from the revenue court premises. Both had been fighting revenue cases for almost a decade and would make affidavits for students and others. When the PBA vigilance asked for their identity cards,Rathod said she did not have one,but handed over a photocopy of sanad,which turned out to be in the name of another lawyer. Shivsharan did not have a sanad.
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