Result: Petition dismissed.

Deepak Verma, ACJ.

This writ petition is filed under Articles 226 & 227 of the Constitution of India against the order dated 20.12.2007 passed by learned II Addl. Civil Judge (Sr. Dvn.) Bangalore, in O.S. No. 1538/05. On the said date, two applications namely I.A. Nos. 18 and 19 came to be considered and disposed of by the learned trial Judge by a common order. The petitioners herein are Advocates by profession. It appears that they were engaged by respondent No. 1 (arrayed as defendant No. 7 in the suit) for appearing on its behalf in various cases pending in different Courts.

2. Respondent No.1-Divine Light School for Blind is running a school for blind children. It also appears that it has several properties in and around Bangalore. Some of the properties are subject matter of litigations and to represent the interest of respondent No.1, services of the petitioners as Advocates were taken and in the present suit the petitioner-Advocate was engaged to represent them since they were arraigned as defendant No.7. On account of losing faith and confidence by the litigant on the petitioners/Advocates, they filed a memo seeking permission to withdraw the vakalath and to engage some other Advocates on their behalf. Not only the petitioner filed objection to the memo but also filed application in I.A.No.18 seeking to reject the prayer of defendant No.7. The perusal of impugned order passed by the trial Judge shows that while filing objection to the said application, serious allegations have been made by defendant No.7 against the petitioners which is noticed in para 7 of the said order. I.A.No.19 was filed by the petitioners under Order 26, Rule 9 of CPC as if they were parties to the suit. Both the applications filed by the petitioners were dismissed. Against the said order, this writ Petition has been filed and the question of an Advocate’s right to continue was raised as a question for consideration and as such the matter was referred to a Division Bench. In our view, the questions raised at the outset do not constitute any question of great importance, therefor what is only to be examined is as to whether the trial Court was justified in dismissing the application wherein the petitioners had sought for their right to continue to remain on record.

3. In an attempt to assail the impugned order passed by the trial Court the learned Counsel appearing for the petitioners contended that the trial Court was not justified in dismissing the applications filed by the petitioners herein since in the present case the contract of engagement of the Advocate was not on usual terms but paragraph 3 and 4 in the vakalath form had been altered suitably whereunder the petitioners had agreed to represent the interest of the blind and disabled and such work was undertaken to be done without charging any professional fees. The learned Counsel also referring to the letters dated 24.8.2005, 16.9.2005 and 4.1.2006 produced at Annexures- B to D stated that the work undertaken by the petitioners on pro bono basis had been appreciated by the 7th defendant. In that context, the learned Counsel contended that the vakalath could not have been terminated and such termination is due to certain illegal activities of the trustees and therefore the petitioners require to remain on record to protect the interest of the blind children for whose benefit the 7th defendant is established. According to the learned Counsel the said aspects have not been properly appreciated by the trial Court.

4. In this backdrop, before making our own assessment of the documents at Annexures-A to D referred by the learned Counsel, we would advert to the order passed by the trial Court on the said applications. While doing so, we cannot lose sight of the fact that the petition is one under Article 227 of the Constitution of India and as such the correctness or otherwise of the order passed by the trial Court would have to be viewed from the limited scope available while exercising th