4. Violations of Natural Justice and the Right of Due Process This reasoning harshly judged Hamid’s reliance on his lawyer and failed to account for the power imbalance between impoverished litigants and legal professionals. The Court did not meaningfully consider whether it was reasonable to expect Hamid to hold his lawyer accountable as imagined by the judge. Given the socio-economic realities—where many litigants lack telephonic access or familiarity with legal processes—such an expectation appears disconnected from their lived experience. Illustration 2: Bhanu Biswas maintained contact with his lawyer, repeatedly enquiring about his case. His lawyer threatened to withdraw due to these repeated reminders and assured Biswas in 2009 that all necessary steps had been taken. However, Biswas later learned that he had already been declared a foreigner via an ex parte order in 2003. When he filed a writ petition in 2011, Justice B.K. Sharma dismissed it, providing no clarity on what further steps Biswas could have taken to mitigate the situation.323 Biswas’s case illustrates that diligence on the defendant’s part does not necessarily improve outcomes. The structural power imbalance between poor litigants and their lawyers is stark. Lawyers often exert expertise dominance, while defendants typically lack the financial means or leverage to hold them accountable. Viewed alongside Biswas’s case, Abdul Hamid’s situation underscores a critical point: following up with one’s lawyer is unlikely to alter the course of events in such cases. Judges failed to ask the essential question that would give the control test any practical meaning: could the defendant realistically have done anything to prevent the injustice? 105 Illustration 3: Rekha Rani Das missed her hearing because her lawyer did not inform her of the date. Illiterate and entirely dependent on her lawyer, she was unable to take any additional steps. Justice B.K. Sharma dismissed her writ petition without suggesting what reasonable steps she could have taken to control the situation.324 323 324 Bhanu Biswas v. State of Assam WP(C) 1663/2012 (Gauhati High Court, 22 September 2015). Smti Rekha Rani Das v. Union of India WP(C) 4833/2011 (Gauhati High Court, 18 November 2015)