Court shocked over lawyers’ qualification
713 ‘non-graduates’ allowed to practice
The Madras High Court on Wednesday expressed shock over Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry (BCTP) having permitted as many as 713 people, who had obtained law degrees on the basis of postgraduate courses completed through open university system without having undergone graduation courses, to get enrolled as lawyers between 2009 and 2016.
Justice N. Kirubakaran left it open to Advocate-General Vijay Narayan, now the ex-officio chairman of the council, to issue show-cause notices to all the 713 candidates seeking explanation as to why their enrolment should not be cancelled since the Supreme Court had, in 2009, held against obtaining master’s degrees without completing graduation.
The judge also said that it would be open to the Advocate-General to initiate appropriate action, against 42 other lawyers who had enrolled with the Bar Council, before the tenure of its elected office-bearers came to an end on April 19 last year, without even providing basic documents including address proof.
The court was told that though a special committee, which was now administering the BCTP under the chairmanship of Mr. Narayan, had issued notices to the 42 advocates through e-mail, only two had replied so far.
Curiously, one of the 42 advocates had enrolled twice with the council and he had been allotted two different enrolment numbers.
After recording the submission of the Advocate-General that an elaborate verification process of all lawyers enrolled with the Bar Council was under way, the judge said that the elections to the council could be conducted only after the process was completed in order to ensure that only “genuine” advocates participate in the election process.
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