Rules for litigants to appear in person before court not contrary to fundamental rights: Bombay HC

Bombay High Court upholds rules for litigants to argue personally, stating they are regulatory, not prohibitive.

The Bombay High Court on May 7 said rules framed for granting permission to litigants to argue their matters personally are regulatory in nature and not contrary to the constitutional rights of freedom of speech and expression and equality before law.

A division bench of Justices A.S. Chandurkar and Jitendra Jain dismissed a petition filed by a former judicial officer challenging a September 2015 notification — Rules for Presentation and Conduct of Proceedings in-Person by Parties. The court said the rules are not prohibitive in nature so as to offend provisions of the Article 14 (equality before law) and 19(1)(A) (freedom of speech and expression) of the Constitution of India.

“The rules are merely regulatory in nature and have been framed to enable presentation and conduct of proceedings by a party-in-person smoothly to facilitate the administration of justice,” the Bombay HC said.

The petitioner, Naresh Vaze, in his plea, claimed the rules deny the right of audience to a litigant and hence, contravene the constitutional rights. Under the impugned rules, if a petitioner is desirous of arguing his or her case on their own, they must first appear before a two-member committee comprising officials of the HC's registry department.

The committee would scrutinise the matter and interact with the person and thereafter submit a report indicating if the person would be able to argue properly or whether an advocate could be appointed to assist the court.

Once a person is found to be competent to appear personally before the court, he or she has to give an undertaking that they would maintain decorum of the court and would not use objectionable or unparliamentary language or indulge in such behaviour in court. Failure to abide by such undertaking would result in the initiation of contempt proceedings.

The court in its order said the rules only seek to regulate the mode and manner in which a party wants to appear and argue a case in person. "There is no blanket prohibition or bar for a party to appear in person before the court. The rules merely regulate the manner in which a party who desires to appear in person is required to take steps to facilitate the same," the HC said.