Madras High Court sentences advocate to four months of imprisonment for not vacating rented property
Justice N. Sathish Kumar refrained from even suspending the sentence, until the filing of an appeal, by taking serious note of the adverse conduct of the lawyer who had subjected the landlord to great amount of hardship for several years by filing multiple cases and showed scant respect for court orders passed against him.
The judge directed the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry too to initiate disciplinary proceedings against the contemnor since his conduct was unbecoming of a lawyer. 'Such a serious misconduct, if not dealt with by this court with a firm hand, will amount to giving a licence to such unscrupulous lawyers,' the judge observed.
He pointed out that the advocate had taken a two-storey building at Choolaimedu on rent from a person named Parsanchand in 2006. After the death of the landlord in 2009, his son P. Vikash Kumar urged the lawyer to vacate the property and hand over vacant possession to him since he wanted to use it for personal purposes.
When the advocate refused to vacate, Mr. Kumar filed a rent control petition in 2015 and obtained favourable orders in 2021. The order passed by the Rent Control court was confirmed by an appellate court too in 2024. Thereafter, the advocate filed a civil revision petition before the High Court challenging the eviction order.
Justice Kumar dismissed the revision petition on November 8, 2024 and directed the lawyer to vacate the premises within two months. Then, the judge also directed the Greater Chennai Commissioner of Police to vacate the petitioner from the rented property if he does not do so within the stipulated time.
The High Court's dismissal order was confirmed by the Supreme Court too. However, the top court extended the time for vacating the property till May 31, 2025 at the request of the counsel representing the lawyer. Refusal to comply with the timeline led to the filing of the present contempt plea against the lawyer by the landlord.
Even after the court began hearing the contempt plea, the lawyer evaded from vacating the premises on pretext or the other forcing the court to send its Head Bailiff to take away his belongings. He picked up a quarrel with the Head Bailiff too and lodged complaints against him with the Registrar General.
Further, the judge found that apart from burdening the landlord with an avalanche of cases, Mohandoss had not spared even the landlord's counsel against whom a complaint was lodged under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act of 1989.
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