Gauhati High Court fines lawyers for representing fictitious petitioner 

Gauhati High Court fined two advocates ₹50,000 each for dragging a case for more than six years on behalf of a non-existing client in a “frivolous litigation”.

The Gauhati High Court has fined two advocates ₹50,000 each for dragging a case for more than six years on behalf of a non-existing client in a “frivolous litigation”. 

The order in the case was issued by the single-judge Bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar Medhi on March 23. 

Dismissing the case filed in 2016, the court found it “astonishing” that the judicial process was “successfully taken for a ride” for more than half a decade. 

The two advocates — H.S. Kalsi and R.S. Sadiyal — were found to have signed the ‘vakalatnama’, a document authorising an advocate to fight a case on behalf of a client, to represent the petitioner named Beolin Kharbhih. 

The petitioner claimed to be a distant relative of one Sankar Prasad Nath, a former Deputy Superintendent of Police in the CID of Assam police. 

According to the petitioner, the police officer was killed in a hit-and-run case for pursuing some sensitive cases involving some politically influential people. His wife also died under mysterious circumstances but no action was taken despite FIRs and several representations to the authorities concerned, the petitioner claimed. 

A judge of the High Court of Meghalaya was among 26 people made parties in Kharbhih’s case filed in 2016. During the course of the litigation, the status report filed by the government advocate stated that the CID could not find any clue to establish the existence of the petitioner.