Karnataka High Court: A Division bench comprising of CJ Dinesh Maheshwari and S. Sujatha, J. pulled up an advocate who tampered with court records and directed the Registrar of the Court to make a specific report as regards the functioning of the office.
The petitioner, an advocate by profession, had filed the instant petition whereon certain office objections were raised by the Registry of High Court. In order to overcome those objections, the petitioner applied whitener on a certain paragraph of the petition and then submitted that in view of such deletion, the petition no longer remained a public interest litigation.
The Court took serious note of the tampering of court records by the petitioner and expressed its reservations thereto. It was further noted that the petitioner initially submitted that the person-in-charge of the file had advised him to put whitener on that specific part of the pleading. It was observed that it was inconceivable as to how the petitioner being an advocate himself, could tamper with court records even at the instance of some other person. Upon expressing of such concern by the court, the petitioner submitted a memo along with an unconditional apology.
In view of the conduct of the petitioner, the court declined to entertain the present petition. However, in the interest of justice, it was left open for him to file a fresh writ petition which would be entertained in accordance with law.[C.S. Madhu v. Karnataka Information Commission, Writ Petition No. 1326 of 2018, decided on 14-11-2018]
