The Allahabad High Court recently initiated suo moto criminal contempt proceedings against an advocate who misled the court in order to obtain a bail order.
A single bench of Justice Dinesh Kumar Singh passed this order against Advocate Parmanand Gupta after discovering that he obtained a favorable order for his client while concealing the fact that another bail petition had previously been rejected by another bench of the court.
The Court also noted that this was the only instance in which Parmanand Gupta had chosen to conceal and mislead the Court.
With this, the bench granted the state’s plea seeking bail cancellation and ordered that the accused be taken into custody.
He did not, however, mention that his previous bail application had been denied, and that this was his second bail application.
When the second bail plea was granted, the State moved the High Court to cancel the bail on the grounds that the rejection of the first bail had been concealed by both the counsel and the accused.
Taking note of the entire facts of the case, the Court observed thus, “Sri Parmanand Gupta, Advocate, has, prima facie, conducted himself against the Bar Council Rules, professional ethics, contemptuous manner and he has played fraud with the Court and also interfered with the course of justice by misleading the Court as he concealed the material fact regarding rejection of the first bail application by this Bench. The Court has noted that this is not the only instance in which Sri Parmanand Gupta, Advocate, has chosen to conceal and mislead the Court.”
As a result, it was ordered that suo moto criminal contempt proceedings be initiated against him, and the state’s request for bail cancellation was granted.
