NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday held a Patiala House courts lawyer here guilty of criminal contempt for promising, for a consideration, to secure the release of a Canadian national, facing prosecution in a drug trafficking case, on bail.Sentencing Rajiv Dawar, a Division Bench of the Court comprising Justice Manmohan Sarin and Justice Manju Goel restrained him from appearing in the High Court as well as in lower courts for two months. It also imposed a fine of Rs.2,000.The judgment came on a reference made by Additional Sessions Judge Lal Singh, who has been hearing the case against Canadian Edward Joseph Ellis.

Earlier, Ellis, in a complaint from the Tihar Central Jail here, accused Dawar of defrauding him of Rs.7.5 lakh, being part-payment of a total demand for Rs. 30 lakh, to get him released on bail.

Dawar told him that he had spoken to the people concerned, Ellis alleged.

Also, the lawyer had taken a written, undated undertaking from him for payment of Rs. 3 lakhfor court appearances, on the pretext of completing formalities in an enquiry from the British High Commission here. When he, realising his folly, demanded the papers back, Dawar refused to return them. Thereafter, Ellis stopped further payments. In his reference, Mr. Singh said the lawyer virtually made it appear to Ellis that in the Indian judicial system money could procure bail howsoever serious an offence and whatever the legal impediments. The lawyer defamed the court. This amounted to interference with the administration of justice and the course of judicial proceedings.

Plea dismissed

The High Court dismissed Dawar's plea that the payment of Rs.7.5 lakh was towards his professional fee and charges for his services. From the trial court records, it was found that he had not appeared for Ellis in either effective miscellaneous proceedings or hearings, the Bench said.

The payments were part of the arrangement and made pursuant to the assurance held out by the lawyer of his having spoken to the persons responsible for releasing Ellis on bail, it said.

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