2023 (11) TMI 450

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....erer entrusted Chartered Accountant (CA) named Sandip Kumar Jha with the accounts, income tax, GST, GST registration etc. with regard to her business and continued to hand over cash and make payments in connection with tax and other financial expenses through bank transfer in favour of the accountant. In the month of September, 2022 the petitioner went to the United Bank of India, Sevok Road Branch and was informed that her current account with the said bank was blocked against recovery of her liability towards payment of GST. The petitioner found that the registered address, phone number and e-mail ID given to the authority were that of the C.A. and not the petitioner. Several attempts made by the petitioner to contact the accountant there....

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....ts. Placing reliance on an authority in Rafiq & Anr. V. Munshilal & Anr. reported in AIR 81 S.C. 1400, learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the petitioner should not be made to suffer due to laches on the part of her C.A. In the authority referred by the learned counsel for the petitioner, the Hon'ble Supreme Court has observed in no uncertain terms that a person who selects his advocate, briefs him, pays the fees demanded by him and then trusts him to do the rest of the things cannot be made to suffer for not acting as a watch dog of the advocate. It shall be useful to set out the relevant portion of the judgment hereunder: " The disturbing feature of the case is that under our present adversary legal system where the partie....

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....f the default of his advocate. If we reject this appeal, as Mr. A.K. Sanghi invited us to do, the only one who would suffer would not be the lawyer who did not appear but the party whose interest he represented. The problem that agitates us is whether it is proper that the party should suffer for the inaction, deliberate omission, or misdemeanour of his agent. The answer obviously is in the negative. May be that the learned advocate absented himself deliberately or intentionally. We have no material for ascertaining that aspect of the matter. We say nothing more on that aspect of the matter. However, we cannot be a party to an innocent party suffering injustice merely because his chosen advocate defaulted. Therefore, we allow this appeal, s....