KULDEEP AGARWAL Vs. STATE OF UTTARAKHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) "From the moment that any advocate can be permitted to say that he will or will not stand between the Crown and the subject arraigned in court where he daily sits to practice, from the moment the liberties of England are at an end. If the advocate refuses to defend from what he may think of the charge or of the defence, he assumes the character of the judge; nay he assumes it before the hour of the judgment; and in proportion of his rank and reputation puts the heavy influence of perhaps a mistaken opinion into the scale against the accused in whose favour the benevolent principles of English law make all assumptions, and which commands the very Judge to be his Counsel"

(2.) So said Sir Thomas Erskine who had accepted the retainer to defend Thomas Paine in 1792 when he was prosecuted for treason for publishing the second part of his work "The Rights of Man" in defense of the French Resolution. This speech of Sir Thomas Erskine, and the case of Thomas Paine which he defended, resulted in his losing the office of the Attorney General to the Prince of Wales. (The Barrister: Advocate at the English Bar: by W.W. Boulton; A.S. Mohammed Rafi vs. State of Tamil Nadu and others, 2011 1 SCC 688).

(3.) The nobility of the profession, and the high traditions of the Bar, are best reflected in the views of Clarence Darrow (widely renowned as the Attorney for the Damned), that a person, however wicked, depraved, vile, degenerate, perverted, loathsome, execrable, vicious or repulsive he may be regarded by society, has a right to be defended in a court of law and, correspondingly, it is the duty of the lawyer to defend him. (A.S. Mohammed Rafi, 2011 1 SCC 688).