Court orders action against advocates for ‘deliberately’ giving false info

A special CBI court has ordered action against two advocates under the Advocates Act by the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa for deliberately giving false reports to the State Bank of Travancore in a bank-fraud case.

One of the advocates, Akhilesh Naik had sought for discharge in the case, wherein a trust had allegedly cheated the bank of over Rs 14 crores by availing loans using fabricated documents. As per the CBI’s case, the advocate had submitted a false report regarding one of the properties that the trust used as a collateral for the loan.

While the court gave Naik a clean chit in the case, it noted that evidence on record proves that he had deliberately given an opinion which he knew was false, amounting to misconduct. Special CBI Judge SU Wadgaonkar said, Naik is liable for initiation of proceedings under the provisions of the Advocates Act. The court also directed initiation of proceedings against another advocate whom the CBI had not chargesheeted, claiming there is not sufficient evidence against her.

Judge Wadgaonkar directed that the copy of the order with related documents be forwarded through the CBI to pursue the case before the Bar Council of Maharashtra. It also directed the CBI to forward its order to the Indian Bank Association to ensure that in future, the two advocates - Naik and Prerna Deshpande not to be empanelled on bank panels.

Giving a clean chit to Naik, it said that there is no evidence to prove that he aided or conspired with the conspirators or borrowers. The order said the circumstances on record indicate that one of the co-accused - the then branch manager, for his convenience or to fulfil compliance before sanctioning the loan, had got the false report from advocate Naik. It observed that the furnishing of the false report, however, had no nexus with the conspiracy.

The CBI had alleged that the advocate had conspired with other co-accused and submitted a false report. The report mentioned that the trust was the owner of the land, which it furnished as a collateral for loan. Naik showed in his report, that he had visited the sub-registrar's office and verified the ownership record of the property, when allegedly, he had not done so.