Lawyer pic on vakalats: HC suspends rules

TNN | Dec 30, 2017, 10:41 IST

 CHENNAI: More than a month after making it mandatory for lawyers to affix their photograph and other details on vakalats filed in the court, so as to keep bogus lawyers out of court proceedings, the Madras high court has agreed to 'temporarily suspend' the order till January 22, 2018. The rule was to come into force from January 2 next year.

It was in November second week that justice S Vaidyanathan passed the order and said advocate filing cases must affix a valid photo identity card, along with details of enrolment number, residential and office address and contact number, on vakalats. Now, after much persuasion by almost all advocates associations, the court agreed to temporarily suspend the order till January 22, 2018.

Noting that the order has been suspended since various bar associations have sought more time to submit their suggestions to weed out fake lawyers from the profession, justice Vaidyanathan made it clear that such suggestions must be made by January 22, without delay.

In his earlier order, the judge had also held that all anticipatory bail applications must be filed in the form of affidavits, with signature of the advocate on all the pages. Justice Vaidyanathan brought in the suspended rules after he unearthed a fraud played upon by a group of litigants, who filed multiple bail applications at the same time.

Aggrieved by the order, Bar associations requested the court to either recall the order or modify it removing the new rules. On November 21, noting that the associations are making such submission only to please its members and genuine legal practitioners would not object such directions, the judge refused to modify the directions.

But now, since many other associations, including Madras Bar Association, made a similar request to the court, the judge decided to suspend the rules till January 22.