Vakalatnama for High Court

You can have the best argument in the world and still be told by the court that you have no standing to make it. A lawyer who walks into the Bombay High Court without a signed vakalatnama from the client is in exactly that position. The document is one page, usually printed, and clients sign it without reading. Yet it is the source of everything the advocate may do in the case. What must it say, and why does the High Court version need more care than the one you would use in a small-causes court?

In two minutes

A vakalatnama is the written authority by which a client appoints an advocate to appear, act and plead for him; in the High Court it is filed with the first proceeding and defines how far the advocate can bind the client.

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