Can an Advocate Be Prosecuted for Sending Legal Notice on Client Instructions? Orissa High Court Clarifies
Case Title: Bijayananda Panda v. State of Odisha & Ors.
Case No.: CRLMC No. 3396 of 2025
Coram: Dr. Justice Sanjeeb Kumar Panigrahi
Court Observation
“If every unsuccessful legal opinion or every factual representation made by a client could retrospectively become the foundation for criminal prosecution of the advocate, the Bar would cease to function as an independent component of the justice-delivery system. The BCI rules themselves recognise the advocate’s duty to defend an accused irrespective of the advocate’s personal opinion concerning guilt.”
“Can an Advocate, who issues a legal notice strictly on the instructions of his senior and on behalf of a named client, can be arraigned as a co-conspirator, especially in the absence of any independent material demonstrating his knowledge of, or active participation in, the underlying wrong?”
“In the absence of such connecting material, to permit the machinery of criminal law to proceed against an advocate merely because he rendered professional assistance in good faith would be to confuse professional association with criminal complicity, negligence with mens rea, and an erroneous exercise of professional judgment with participation in a criminal conspiracy. Criminal law, which visits penal consequences upon culpable conduct, cannot be permitted to operate upon such a slender and uncertain foundation.”
