Advocate's responsibility and resulting miscarriage of justice can lead to the setting aside of orders and restoration of appeals.

( 1 ) I have heard the petitioner's learned Advocate. The petitioner was defendant 4 in the original proceeding which was a suit for recovery of certain amount of money instituted by the karnataka Bank Limited. According to the petitioner, the defendant 2 had borrowed money for purposes of purchasing some typewriting machine which was subsequently transferred to the present petitioner who was defendant 4. He states that he had nothing to do with the loan transaction or the liability as he was neither a borrower nor a surety. According to him, there was only a private arrangement between defendant 1 and himself whereby he took over the machines and undertook to deposit the amount in the Bank. After a few months, the Bank seized the machines and hence it became impossible for him to deposit the amount. His contention is that on these facts, no decree could ever have been passed against him. The petitioners states that he is a resident of Manjeshwar and that the suit was filed in mangalore. He had engaged the services of one Sri Damodar who was in fact representing him in the Civil Court. The record indicates that Sri Damodar had not filed any written statement and according to the petitioner the suit was transferred to the munsiffs Court on 15-2-1989 and he was told by his Advocate that he would receive notice from that Court. He states that long thereafter he received notice in the execution proceedings on 7-2-1991 when he came to know that a decree was passed against him. He filed his appeal along with an application for condonation of delay. It is in respect of this application filed under Section 5 of the Limitation Act that the Trial Court has passed an order dismissing the application and the appeal.

( 2 ) A perusal of the order indicates that among other things the petitioner had taken up the contention thac he had never engaged any Advocate to represent him before the Trial Court namely the Munsiffs Court and that the passing of the decree against him was bad in law. The learned Judge has taken a serious view of this statement because he states that the order sheet of the Munsiffs Court clearly indicates that Sri Damodar was representing the petitioner on several dates of hearing and that since he did not file any written statement, the decree was ultimately passed. Having regard to the fact that the statement appeared to be a clear falsehood, the application was dismissed and so was the appeal. The civil revision petition is directed against that order. The petitioner's learned Advocate has submitted that the order in question was unjustified because if at all action ought to have taken against anybody, that it was the learned Advocate who was squarely responsible for this state of affairs. There is, on the facts of this case more than adequate justification for this submission because it is very clear from the record that the learned Advocate was informed in the first instance when the matter was before the Civil Court and that he did not file the written statement right until the time when the matter was transferred. The lower Court has lost sight of the fact that when the suit was transferred to the Munsiff s Court, it was the obligation of the Advocates who were on record to continue to appear and that technically therefore there was no need for fresh notice. The mistake committed by the learned munsiff was that when the learned Advocate for the petitioner did not appear, instead of serving notice on the party namely the petitioner, the Court sent the notice to the Advocate Sri damodar. This to my mind, was an error because the consequences to the petitioner are serious in so far as Sri damodar appeared for a few dates of hearing, did not file the written statement, did not inform the client of what was happening and thereafter disappeared from the proceedings. It is in this background that the petitioner pointed out in his application that he had not engaged any Advocate before the munsiff s Court