The Supreme
Court has recently decided on the nature and extent of criminal liability that
may be imposed on a lawyer who issues a legal opinion that is found to be
erroneous. In what might be a matter of some relief to the legal fraternity, the
court has set very high standards to be satisfied by the prosecution to charge a
lawyer for the crime of conspiracy in defrauding a bank.
In Central Bureau
of Investigation,Hyderabad v. K. Narayana Rao, the lawyer concerned, being a
panel advocate representing a bank, delivered a series of legal opinions
relating to the title to several properties. The bank lent monies on the
strength of the legal opinions, which were found to be erroneous. The lending
transaction was found to be part of a larger scheme by several persons to
defraud the bank by inducing it to lend monies that caused wrongful loss to the
bank. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), after investigation, filed
charges against the lawyer. These charges were quashed by the Andhra Pradesh
High Court, against which the CBI appealed to the Supreme Court.
After
considering the available evidence, the court concluded that there was
insufficient material to conclude that the lawyer was acting as a conspirator so
as to be charged for the offence to defraud the bank.
In deciding whether
a legal practioner has acted against moral turpitude , background of each case
has to be looked into and to assess whether such practioner had deliberately
acted with ill-failth and malafide intention.
No comments:
Post a Comment