T.N. Raghupathy v. High Court of Karnataka & Ors.
Background
This is not a fresh judgment on the underlying civil appeal (which had already been decided on 16.12.2014), but a later order on Interlocutory Application No. 2 of 2014 filed within that same appeal. Counsel for the applicant-Respondent No. 4 pointed out that senior counsel Shri Aditya Sondhi had been wrongly recorded as having appeared in the Court's order dated 08.12.2014 and judgment dated 16.12.2014, even though he had not actually appeared. The error traced back to a mistake in the appearance slip filed by the Advocate-on-Record on those two dates, and the applicant filed a supporting affidavit.
Decision Breakdown
Accepting the affidavit and submissions, the Supreme Court allowed the application and ordered that Shri Aditya Sondhi's name be deleted both from the proceedings of 8 December 2014 and from the judgment of 16 December 2014 in Civil Appeal No. 11439/2014. The order fully and finally disposes of the specific correction sought in this application; it does not reopen or revisit the merits of the underlying appeal itself.
Lesson Learnt
Court records of appearance are taken seriously and can be corrected through a proper application supported by an affidavit if a lawyer's name is mistakenly recorded as having appeared when they did not: a useful reminder that clerical/record errors in a judgment are rectifiable through the court itself rather than left uncorrected.