Supreme Court of India reprimands lawyer who appeared shirtless in Video Conferencing hearing

Approach of Art.136 Cannot Be Adopted While Deciding Petitions by The High Court Under Art.227: SC

The Hon’ble Court was hearing a matter relating to the spread of Coronavirus in the Children Protection Homes while a lawyer appeared before the court, shirtless. The Hon’ble Court had taken Suo moto cognizance of the matter pertaining to the COVID-19 spread in the abovementioned place.

The Bench hearing the matter was headed by Hon’ble Justice L. Nageshwar Rao. Hon’ble Justice Rao called out the advocate for appearing shirtless and said that the advocate’s behaviour was reckless.

Another lawyer had appeared shirtless before the once before. This was the second instance when a lawyer dressed inappropriately and came before the Hon’ble Court in last few months.

The Presiding of the Bench, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud expressed his disapproval and discontent and said that some decorum has to be maintained while appearing before the court. Further, Hon’ble Justice D.Y. Chandrachud stated that even though the hearings were being conducted virtually through video conferencing and not physically, the Court was a regular and a full-fledged court and the counsels appearing needed to be careful, rather extra.

In a similar incident, in the month of June, earlier this year; Justice Ravindra Bhat had accepted an unconditional apology by the lawyer who appeared dressed inappropriately before the court and dictated that while appearing before the Court the counsels need to be decent and presentable.