LAWYERS AS VILLIANS?
DiDoc Series
LAWYERS UNDER CONSUMER ACT? …….THINK TWICE
Is a person, who engages a lawyer, a consumer? Think twice. A lawyer represents a litigant; he says, in legal terms, what his client tells him to. AND MOST CLIENTS DO NOT TELL THE TRUTH. AT LEAST ALL OF IT.
In every court case, there is a winner and a loser. It is the result of an adversarial system and it has to be so. Theoretically, then, every loser may have a right to approach the Consumer Forum. It will lead to a plethora of Pandora Boxes. File a suit, bogus though it may be. When thrown out by the court, sue your own lawyer, any pretext will do, and try to recover your fees paid. Simple. All you need is time, a bloody-minded attitude and the ability to bite the hands that fed you. Now, a litigant can never be at a loss.
Why only the loser? if the successful party has not got as much as he wanted to he too can take his lawyer to the cleaners. Maybe even old cases can be reopened, if such an act allows for retrospective action.
The Consumer Protection Act allows for prosecution of the manufacturer, retailer, supplier, service provider and the delivery people. Sub-standard goods and services. In other words, all those involved in the system of a goods or service reaching the end consumer and living up to its promise. If and when the Act is applied to the legal system, it must well include the judges, because it is they who decide the cases. The lawyer only puts forward the case as told him by the litigant. And if the judges are not sued by the litigants, why cannot the lawyers, the losing ones at least, sue the judge for deficient judgements? Should the judges be protected from incorrect orders as they are now?
Next, if a litigant sues a lawyer in a consumer court, by engaging another lawyer, and loses, what then? Does he sue the new lawyer, along with the judge who passed the judgement?
BANDLESS AND ‘NAQLI’
As it is, the Consumer Courts are a breeding ground for fake and pseudo lawyers. These band-less phoneys are a perversion of the system. The Act was specifically enacted to allow people to agitate their matters without the cost of a legal representation. In have jumped uncertified charlatans to make money. Worse, these naquli vakils are not bound by any code of ethics nor are they responsible to any authority. They are a law unto themselves and above all laws. They cannot be sued for deficient service because they are not lawyers.
That would bring us to the absurd situation where masqueraders will harangue legitimate advocates for trumped-up deficiencies in a court where the former have no right to be! AND WE ARE TAUGHT THAT THE LAW DOES NOT REOGNISE ABSURDITIES.