A perplexing scene was witnessed in a courtroom when Justice Dipak Misra, hearing an appeal of Rahul Gandhi in a defamation case, could not recognise U R Lalit, a law doyen and father of his colleague Justice U U Lalit, and went on to inquire about his experience of practice in criminal law.
Lalit, the Mumbai-based top criminal lawyer, was trying to respond to a query raised by the bench about the power of magistrates to ask police to probe private criminal defamation complaints.
The bench, also comprising Justice R F Nariman, referred to an earlier verdict delivered on a batch of pleas, including the one filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy and Gandhi, challenging constitutional validity of penal defamation law and said police cannot be asked to probe a private defamation complaints.
Lalit said the proposition of law laid down by this court in the judgement is new and hence needed to be debated upon.
"Have you practised criminal law?," the bench asked.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing Rahul, dropped the hint by saying "Lordship, he has practised criminal law much more than us."
Justice Nariman, who also hails from Mumbai, confided something to Justice Misra.
"Now, I will ask Sibal to sit down. Sorry. Sorry, you have never argued before me. So I didn't recognise you," Justice Misra said.
The ever polite Lalit said, "Still, it is my fault. The man who comes occasionally to the Supreme Court should be ready for this."
"Sorry again. Now we would like to be educated by you (Lalit) on a particular point of law," Justice Misra said.
