The Patna High Court has quashed criminal proceedings against an advocate who was arraigned as an accused solely for drafting a sale deed, holding that merely rendering professional legal services cannot attract criminal liability in the absence of any allegation of fraud, conspiracy or active participation in the alleged offence.
Justice Chandra Shekhar Jha allowed a petition filed under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure challenging the order dated January 20, 2017, by which the trial court had taken cognizance against the advocate in a complaint case relating to a disputed land transaction.
According to the complaint, the petitioner, a practising advocate at the Patna Civil Court, had drafted the sale deed while another person typed the document. The complainant later discovered that the land forming the subject matter of the transaction had already been sold to someone else and sought to implicate the advocate in the criminal case.
The petitioner contended that he had been implicated solely because he drafted the sale deed in his professional capacity and that neither the complaint nor the enquiry witnesses attributed any fraudulent act or criminal role to him. It was further argued that the trial court had mechanically taken cognizance despite the absence of material connecting him with the alleged offence.
The High Court examined the complaint as well as the statements recorded during the enquiry and noted that the only allegation against the petitioner was that he had prepared the sale deed as an advocate. It further observed that the two enquiry witnesses did not even name the petitioner, and the State was unable to dispute these factual submissions.
Relying on the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in State of Haryana v. Bhajan Lal, 1992 Supp (1) SCC 335, the Court held that the case fell within the first three illustrative categories warranting exercise of inherent powers to prevent abuse of the process of law. It concluded that the allegations, even if accepted at face value, did not disclose the commission of any offence by the advocate.
Accordingly, the High Court quashed the cognizance order insofar as it related to the petitioner, observing that no criminal case is made out against an advocate merely for drafting a sale deed in the course of professional engagement where the property is subsequently found to be disputed.
