Cuttack: Orissa High Court has underlined that lawyers who failed to understand the significance of the profession and their role in providing people access to justice had no right to continue in the role.

The observation came last week when it expressed dismay over the betrayal of a client's trust by a lawyer, who had filed an application for anticipatory bail for himself.

Kharavela Nagar police had registered a case against a member of the Bhubaneswar Bar - Sanjaya Narayan Sahoo - for his alleged involvement in cheating, forgery and claiming a forged document as genuine on the direction of the sub-divisional judicial magistrate, Bhubaneswar, following a complaint by Pravati Swain.

Pravati had engaged Sahoo in a case of alimony and alleged that her husband, in conspiracy with her lawyer, cheated her of the money using a fraudulent divorce document. Sahoo subsequently moved the high court for anticipatory bail.

The court felt that it prima facie appeared that Sahoo had betrayed the trust reposed in him by his client and gone to the extent of claiming percentage of the alimony given to his client. While declining to accept his plea, Justice S.K. Sahoo said the relationship between the lawyer and the client "is one of trust and confidence".

"The client entrusts the whole obligation of handling legal proceedings to an advocate and the advocate has to act with utmost good faith, integrity, fairness and loyalty. Nothing should be done by any member of the legal fraternity, which might tend to lessen, in any degree, the confidence of the public in the fidelity, honesty and integrity of the profession," Justice Sahoo observed in his May 1 order.

Justice Sahoo said the legal profession, which is a service oriented profession, is a major component of the justice delivery system. "The conduct of members of the legal profession who do not follow ethics contributes to obstruction of administration of justice," Justice Sahoo observed.

"If a legal practitioner fails to understand the significance of the profession and his role in providing access to justice and assisting the citizens in securing their fundamental and other rights then he has no right to continue as a member of this noble profession," Justice Sahoo said in his order.