‘No Special Status To Lawyers Coming From Outside Territorial Jurisdiction’: Bombay HC

The Bombay High Court recently stated that lawyers representing parties from outside its territorial jurisdiction will not be given special consideration, and their absence will not be grounds for adjournment.

According to a single-judge Justice Amit Borkar, adjournments will not be granted on the grounds that lawyers are appearing from outside of the High Court’s territorial jurisdiction.

“It is made clear that counsels appearing for the parties are from outside is no ground to grant special status to them. It is made clear that on the next date or any dates thereafter, no adjournment shall be granted on the ground that the counsels are from outside the territorial jurisdiction of this Court,” Justice Borkar remarked.

The territorial jurisdiction of the principal seat extends across Maharashtra districts such as Solapur, Sangli, and Sindhudurg, which are located far from Mumbai, where the principal seat presides.

The order was passed in response to a petition filed by Deepak Kochhar, husband of former ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar, seeking the quashing of a money laundering case filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the alleged ICICI Bank-Videocon case.

Advocate Dadhichi Mhaispurkar sought adjournment as the senior advocate who was the lead counsel in the case, was unable to appear due to difficulty.

Senior Advocate Vikram Chaudhari, a Delhi-based counsel, had previously appeared in the case on behalf of Kochhar.

While Justice Borkar granted the request for an adjournment, he made it clear that no further adjournments would be granted.

All benches of the Bombay High Court hold physical hearings, and lawyers are required to be present.

The only exception is the bench led by Justice GS Patel, which has maintained hybrid hearings that began during the COVID pandemic.

Furthermore, for the bench led by Acting Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala, lawyers or parties may be permitted to appear virtually with the judge’s permission.

The money laundering case being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against Kochhar and others relates to the siphoning off of six high-value loans from ICICI Bank to various Videocon Industries companies totaling Rs 300 crore, in violation of the bank’s sanctioning committee’s rules and policies.

Kochhar has challenged an order of the Special Judge hearing the case, in which process was issued based on a prosecution complaint (similar to a chargesheet), as well as all subsequent proceedings.