Lawyers lock horns over client,court calls for need to check ‘poaching’

In November 2009 the court had appointed Sonia Miskin as a legal aid advocate for Suralkar. However,Suralkar told the court on Tuesday that his advocate is Daulat Khamkar. Under the Criminal Procedure Code an accused has the right to appoint an advocate of his choice.

Miskin told the court that she had prepared for the case and her efforts would be wasted if at the last stage Khamkar was Suralkar’s advocate on record. This would also deprive Miskin of her fee.

Division bench of Justice Ranjana Desai and Justice V K Tahilramani proposed that the counsels divide the fees between them. The court was told that though advocates are appointed through the legal aid services,some advocates are engaged by accused persons after they meet them in jail. Advocate N N Gawankar,who was also present in court,told the judges that such a thing had happened several times to his colleague and lawyer Arfan Sait.

The court called the secretary of the legal aid services and told him that this practice needs to be checked and the accused need to be told that if they engage lawyers on their own they will have to pay the fees to the appointed legal aid advocates. The court has kept a hearing on March 6 to resolve the issue.