Karnataka High Court convicts defense lawyer for misbehavior in courtroom while intoxicated

The high court sentenced the advocate to simple imprisonment for one day till the court comes up and also imposed a fine of ₹2,000.

The Karnataka High Court has held a 55-year-old advocate in criminal contempt for repeatedly disrupting court proceedings, shouting at a civil judge in Karwar when he appeared in the courtroom in a drunken state, and sentenced him to simple imprisonment for one day pending trial, while fined him ₹2,000.

A division bench of Anu Sivaraman and Venkatesh Naik T found Pankaj Kaushik, a Karwar-based advocate, guilty under Section 12(1) of the Contempt of Court Act, 1971.

The High Court in 2022 suo motu initiated contempt proceedings against him on the basis of two letters from the Chief District and Sessions Judge, Karwara, Uttara Kannada district, along with communications received from the Additional Civil Judge and JMFC-II Karwara, before whom the advocate had misbehaved on two occasions.

Two cases

The first incident occurred on April 8, 2022, when Mr. Kaushik, who was personally involved in a domestic violence case filed by his wife, appeared before a civil court even though his case was not listed for hearing that day.

In the courtroom, he yelled at the judge and complained that no date had been set for his case, in addition to yelling at court staff. In addition, he also verbally asserted that a civil judge “received money from his wife in a domestic violence case and ruled in her favor.” Despite warnings, he not only continued to misbehave, but also made defamatory statements against High Court judges.

However, Mr. Kaushik tendered an apology in a letter on April 11, claiming that his behavior was not intentional.

However, on 20 April 2022, Mr. Kaushik again interrupted the court proceedings when a lawyer argued in the same civil court and demanded that his case be taken up. When the judge intervened, he shouted at everyone present in the courtroom.

The smell of alcohol

When a civil judge found him smelling of alcohol and unstable in the courtroom, he sent him for a medical test to a government hospital, which issued a certificate of drunkenness based on the test results.

In his objections to the contempt proceedings, Mr Kaushik denied the allegations and claimed he had practiced for 18 years without blemish. He said he had suffered from epilepsy for over 35 years and was the sole carer of his 75-year-old bedridden mother.

The bench, however, noted that Mr Kaushik had shown “no remorse” during the contempt proceedings against him and “attempted to justify his actions and made outrageous and baseless statements against the judicial institution as a whole”.

“His conduct can only be described as willful and unrelenting and reveals complete apathy towards social, moral and judicial codes of conduct. We are of the view that unless conduct of this nature is punished, the accused sociopaths are likely to repeat such offenses with impunity which would endanger the rule of law and the judicial system as a whole,” the Bench observed.

Published – 16 Sep 2026 18:51 IST