Lawyer fined Rs 25,000 by Bombay HC for submitting offensive photos with plea

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court fined a lawyer Rs 25,000 for including offensive photos in a petition to throw out a rape case against a man.

The petitioner's lawyer annexing the "highly objectionable" images with the plea, according to a division bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and S M Modak, showed "no sense of proportion or discretion." Tuesday saw the release of a copy of the order dated October 7.

The bench came across the photographs while hearing the petition filed by the accused man's wife seeking to quash the FIR and charge sheet filed against him in a rape case.

"Advocates fail to realise that these petitions are filed/placed before the Registry and get circulated through various departments, exposing the parties involved in the photographs," the court said.

It further noted that annexing such photographs was an invasion of privacy of the parties and directed the advocate to forthwith remove the same from the petition copy.

"We expect all advocates to exercise some discretion and proportion whilst annexing photographs which are highly objectionable," the court said.

"For the said conduct of the advocate, we direct the advocate to deposit costs of Rs 25,000 with the Kiritikar Law Library within two weeks," the bench directed.

With PTI inputs