Chief Justice Nagu Flags Dangerous Trend Of Filing Vakalatnamas To Shift Cases From Particular Benches<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Saurabh Malik
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, Updated At : 02:26 PM Jul 03, 2025 IST<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Expressing serious concern over alleged tactics to secure favourable Benches, Punjab and Haryana High Court Chief Justice Sheel Nagu on Thursday termed the emerging \u201ctrend\u201d of advocates filing powers of attorney merely to have matters transferred away from specific judges as \u201cvery dangerous.\u201d
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\u201cThis is a very dangerous trend that you all are developing. You file a power, earn money, and sit down in your home and enjoy life. You don\u2019t want to work,\u201d Chief Justice Nagu observed during a hearing, cautioning that such practices threatened the integrity of court processes and the Bar itself.
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Chief Justice Nagu\u2019s observations came while dealing with a petition filed by M3M group director Roop Bansal. The case was originally filed sometime in January and listed for the first time before the Judge \u201cholding the roster of matters pertaining to Prevention of Corruption Act qua the State of Haryana.\u201d
The Judge recused himself on January 14, following which the matter was listed before another Bench in accordance with the standing instructions in the \u201cprevailing roster.\u201d The case came up for hearing on February 13 before the other Bench, but was dismissed as withdrawn following a request by the petitioner\u2019s counsel.
The case in hand was filed on April 7 by the petitioner, who was represented by an advocate whose cases were not listed before the other Bench. Consequently, the case was placed before the Chief Justice on the administrative side, who nominated the matter to the senior-most Judge \u201camong the criminal single Benches.\u201d It was from this Bench that the case was withdrawn by the Chief Justice, acting on \u201coral and written complaints.\u201d
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After recusing himself from hearing the matter, as he had dealt with it on the administrative side, Chief Justice Nagu asked the senior advocate representing the petitioner whether he had counseled the person \u201cwho had filed a power of attorney just to bring that case out of a particular Bench.\u201d
The Chief Justice warned that such a practice, unless discouraged, could \u201cdevelop a very dangerous trend that a person without any effort files a power and starts earning money\u2026. If it\u2019s done only to get the case out of a particular Bench, that is immoral.\u201d
Turning to the advocate concerned, Chief Justice Nagu pressed: \u201cThere are standing instructions from certain judges about your cases not being listed in their book. How many such benches are there?\u201d The counsel, in response, maintained the instructions were issued regarding just one Bench.
Referring to the case in hand, the counsel said he accepted the brief in good faith as part of his routine criminal practice. \u201cBecause before accepting the brief in good faith, I consulted the matter\u2026 On merit, I consider that this is a good case. But what they had in their mind, I don\u2019t know,\u201d he submitted.
Nonetheless, Chief Justice Nagu expressed dismay at the perceived erosion of professional standards in the Bar. \u201cIt is very unfortunate. The Bar will go down,\u201d the court remarked, stressing that it was the responsibility of senior counsel to guide rather than merely appear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chief Justice Nagu Flags Dangerous Trend Of Filing Vakalatnamas To Shift Cases From Particular Benches Saurabh MalikTribune News ServiceChandigarh, Updated At : 02:26 PM Jul 03, 2025 IST Expressing serious concern over alleged tactics to secure favourable Benches, Punjab and Haryana High Court Chief Justice Sheel Nagu on Thursday termed the emerging “trend” of advocates filing powers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n