[2017] 7 S.C.R. 666

AJAYINDER SANGWAN AND ORS.

BAR COUNCIL OF DELHI & ORS.

(Transferred Case (Civil) No. 126 of2015)

AUGUST 23, 2017

(R.K. AGRAWAL AND ABHAY MANOHAR SAPRE, JJ.J

Advocates Act, 1961 - Fake lawyers and Bar Council elections -Bar Council took steps to cause an enquiry to.find out.fake lawyers and to hold the State Bar Councils elections only thereafter - Petitioners requesting for immediate elections of the State Bar

Council as the term had expired long back whereas the Bar Council of India (BCJ) pressing for need of verification of the candidates to eliminate fake lawyers in order to bring improvement in the Bar and to get deserving practicing advocates for the respective Bar D Councils - Since the process of verification is not completed yet, last opportunity is given for the same - F(fteen days' time be given to cure the defective applications by the concerned Advocates and to all such advocates to submit their complete application.forms.for necessa1y verification of their degrees if they have not submitted

the same earlier, from the date of publication of advertisement which shall be published within 7 days fi"om the passing of this order - One month time granted for verification of applications, without any charge, by the State Bar Councils, after the expilJ' of the above 15 days - The University Authorities shall ensure the verification of degrees awarded by them, without any charge, within one month on its presentation - The re.1pective State Bar Council~· shall publish a Final Electoral Roll by including the names and particulars of such advocates whose degrees attached with the application forms . have been verified by the concerned University cl11thorities - The names of all such advocates who have not removed the defects in G the application forms and also such persons whose degrees on ·

verification have been found false or fake by the University authorities shall not be included in the Electoral Rolls - BC/ to declare the schedule of elections thereajier - All the State Bar Councils are directed to take necessary steps and to conclude all

H 666

AJAYlNDER SANGWAN AND ORS. v. BAR COUNCIL OF 667

DELHI & ORS.

proceedings by 31.12.2017 and send a reply to the BCl - Thereafter, A the BCl, after receiving all the replies from the State Bar Councils, would file a status report - The BCl is directed to request a retired Judge of the Supreme Court in order to control and supervise the verification process and preparation of Electoral Rolls - The BCl is directed to take all steps in this regard immediatef-v in order to do B the needful - Matter to be listed in the second week of January, 2018 on a Non-Miscellaneous Day - Bar Council of lndia Certificate and Place of Practice (Verification) Rules, 2015.

CIVIL ORIGINAL JURISDICTION: Transfer Case (Civil) No. 126 of2015.

Under Article 32 of the Constitution of India.

WITH

T. C. (C) No. 110 of2015,

W. P. (C) Nos. 97, 799, 644, 709, 776, 808 and 1005 of2016.

K.K. Venugopal, AG., Ms. Pinky Anand, ASG, Rajiv Dutta, Y. P. Adhyaru, H.N. Nagamohan Das, Colin Gonsalves, Sushi! Kumar Jain, Sr. Ad vs., Ardhendurnauli Kumar Prasad, N irmal Kumar Ambastha, Ms. Taruna Arahendumauli Prasad, Ms. Shraddha Deshmukh; Nitesh Ranjan, Amritesh Raj, Rajesh Ranjan, Santosh Kumar, M.K. Maroria, Saudahini Sharma, Amit Sharma, Gunwant Dara, Ms. Somya Rathore, G.S. Makker, Ms. Anantha Narayana, Naveen Nagarjuna, Tanm Gulia, Gunjan Singh, Satya Mitra, Shreeji Bhavsar, Puneet Jain, Ms. Paya! Jain, Ms. Christi Jain, R. Balasubramian, Gaurav Sharma, Dhawal Mohan, Amandeep Kaur, Prateek Bhatia, Ms. Maitrayee Bane1jee, Kuna!

Chatterji, P. Soma Sundaram, Mayilsamy K., K.P. Narayanan, Muthu . Ganesa Pandian, K. Kumaran, Mata Prasad Singh, Utkarsh Pandey,

Ranjana Rastogi Singh, Parmanand Pandey, Mohinder J. S. Rupal, S.

Udaya Kumar Sagar, Ms .. Bina Madhavan, Ms. Akanksha Mehra, Prateek Dhir, Ms. Ramandeep Kaur, Mrs. Elizabath Antony (for Mis.

Lawyer's Knit & Co.), M.A. Chinnasamy, Vishal Khattar, Ms. C.

Rubavathi, S. Peer Mohammad, Sunil Kumar, V. Senthil Kumar, Y. Raja Gopala Rao, Venkateshwar Rao Anumolu, Prabhakar Parnam, Baldev Atreya, Deepak Goel, Pawan Kumar Shukla, Pankaj Kumar Singh, Kamal Kumar Pandey, Raj Singh Rana, Aditya Sharma, Akash Jindal,

A (for Mis. Parekh & Co.), Vikas Upadhyay, Sandeep Singh, B. Prabakaran, Ram Sankar, Y. Lokesh, G. Ananda Selvam, Rajaram Narayan, P. Jegan, R.V. Kameshwaran, Birjesh Chaudhary, Hitesh Kumar Sharma, Turisha Varma, S.R. Seti a, Aditya Singh, Rituraj Choudhary, Atul Jha, Sandeep Jha, Dharmendra Kmnar Sinha, Ms. Lalita Kohli (for M/s. Manoj Swamp

& Co.), Anurag Dubey, Ms. Anu Sawhney, Ms. Meenakshi Parihar, Anil Kumar Gupta, M.P. Singh, Rajeev Singh, P. Venkat Reddy, Prashant Kr. Tyagi, M/s. Venkat Palwai Law Associates, Suhas Kadam, Mis.

Lemax Lawyers & Co., Dr. Harsh Sarana, Ms. Sugandha Jain, Jogy Scaria, Ms. Beena Victor, Gagan Gupta, Saurabh Gupta, Ajayinder Sangwan, Vivek Narayan Sharma, Raj Kumar Sharma, S.K. Sharma, S.N. Sharma, Arun Rathi, Gaurav Chandhok, Tamnesh Kumar, Dushyant Yadav, Deepak Sehrawat, Ms. Rishina Parashar, Narendra Singh, Rohan Sharma, Irfan Firdous, V.P. Singh, Kuna! Chopra, Pradeep Kr. Sharma, Ohan Singh, Lalit Kumar, Kamna Nidhar Rawal, B.N. Sharma, Anirudha Kumar, C.P. Singh, Sanjay Singh, Manoj Panchal, Shibashish Misra, Ms.

D Sylona Mohapatra, Mrs. Santosh Singh, Gopal Prasad, M. ShoebAlam, Ms. Fauzia Shakil, Ujjwal Singh, MojahidKarim Khan, Sunil Fernandes, Ms. Astha Sharma, Ms. Nupur Kumar, Ms. Sarla Chandra, Ankur S.

Kulkarni, Anil Kumar Gupta-II, R. V. Kameshwaran, Ramesh Babu M.

R., Ghanshyam Joshi, Ms. Pratibha Jain, PraveenAgrawal, H. Chandra

Sekhar, Ashwani Kumar Dubey, Ms. Nandini Gore, Sudarshan Singh Rawat, Poli Kataki, Rameshwar Prasad Goyal, K. V. Bharathi Upadhyaya, E.C. Agrawala, Himinder Lal, Mritunjay Kumar Sinha, Subhasish Mohanty, Mohammed Sadique T.A., Amo! B. Karande, Anupam Lal Das, Ms. Sneha Kalila, Ms. Aparna Jha, Kailash Chand, Rakesh K. Sharma, Ms. Ruchi Kohli, Rajan K. Chourasia, Sudhanshu S. Choudhari, Ms. Manju Jelley, Ms. Malini Poduval, Ms. Kamakshi S.

Mehlwal, Ms.Anjani Kumar Mishra, HarvinderChowdhury, P. V. Dinesh, A. V. Rangam, Harsh V. Surana, Ms. Sweety Chattopadhyaya, Shekhar Kumar, Ms. Daisy Hannah, Ms. K'asturika Kaumudi, Ms. Ekta Pradhan, Advs. for the appearing parties.

K.R. Chitra, Petitioner-in-person.

The Order of the Court was delivered by

ORDER

R.K. AGRAWAL, J. I. The present transferred case has originated owing to the steps taken by the Bar Council of India to cause

an enquiry and to find out fake lawyers out of its members and/or not A even a member of the Bar Councils and/or member of any Bar Association of the country. While countering, Bar Council of India has submitted that steps have been taken in the matter in accordance with the Advocates Act, 1961 and the Rules framed thereunder to come to a conclusion and to find out such number of fake lawyers in the country and only thereafter B the elections to the State Bar Councils can be held.

2. This Court, vide order dated 05.10.2015, directed that all the matters which are pending in different High Courts in connection with the matter in question be transferred to this court for hearing while refusing to grant stay in respect of giving effect to the Notification in connection with the Bar Council of India Certificate and Place of Practice (Verification) Rules, 2015.

3. Further, in pursuance thereto, this court, vi de order dated 02.11.2015, directed that the persons who are not members of the Bar

 Association of any State or District or otherwise to carry on their profession, the certificate which has been asked for by the Bar Council D of India to be attached with the application form that should be taken into account by the respective Bar Councils allowing them to apply and thereby on such application concerned, Bar Council will take necessary steps to find out the correct position in respect of those persons. It was further made clear that the persons who' were practicing as a E conveyancing lawyer or otherwise or in terms of the Rules of Advocates Act in any manner whatsoever, they should not be interfered with carrying on their practice in such manner whatsoever by the Bar Council oflndia, if they are legally enrolled through the Bar Councils.

4. Heard learned counsel for both the sides on the question of F holding elections to the State Bar Councils at the earliest and perused the records.

5. Learned senior counsel for the Bar Council of India admitted that the work relating to verification is very slow as the States where Advocate Generals are functioning as the Chairman of the State Bar Councils and elections are due, they are unable to spare time for the affairs of the State Bar Councils due to heavy workload. Further, no verification of certificates/degrees have been undertaken for LLB Graduates seeking enrolment after July 2010 and the All India Bar Examination (AIBE) cannot be said to be proof of having a valid degree

of any candidate. In order to expedite the process of verification of degrees, the Bar Council of India proposes to constitute a Central Verification Committee of the Bar Council of India headed by a former Judge of this Court for the purpose of transparent and fair verification.

6. To put it in a nutshell, the petitioners are requesting for immediate elections of the State Bar Council as the term has expired long back whereas the Bar Council of India is pressing for the need of verification of the candidates to eliminate fake lawyers in order to bring improvement in the Bar and to get deserving practicing advocates for the respective Bar Councils.

7. We have been informed by learned senior counsel for the Bar Council of India as well as the respective State Bar Councils that the process of verification is not completed yet. h1 view of that, to do complete justice to the parties, it would be proper for us to provide a last opportunity for the same as mentioned below:-

( I) 15 (fifteen) days' time be given to cure the defective applications by the concerned Advocates and to all such advoc.ates to submit their complete application forms for necessary verification of their degrees if they have not suQmitted the same earlier, from the date of publication of advertisement in two leading newspapers, one in English language and the other in regional language having wide circulation in the respective State/Union Territories, for which advertisement shall be published within 7 days from the passing of this order.

(2) 1 (one) month time for verification of applications, without any charge, by the State Bar Councils, alter the expiry of the above 15 (fifteen) days.

(3) The University Authorities shall ensure the verification of degrees awarded by them, without any charge, within I (month) on its presentation.

( 4) The respective State Bar Councils shall publish a Final Electoral Roll by including the names and particulars of such advocates whose degrees attached with the application forms have been verified by the concerned University authorities. The names of all such advocates who have not removed the defects in the application forms already submitted within the specified time and

also such persons whose degrees on verification have been found A false or fake by the University authorities shall not be included in the Electoral Rolls.

(5) Bar Council of India to declare the schedule of elections in respective State Bar Councils to be held after the expiry of 75 (seventy five) days, as mentioned above, within one week B mentioning therein:-

(i) 15 days for nomination.

(ii) 1 week for withdrawal of nomination . . (iii) t<;> upload final candidates' list in 1 (one) week.

(iv) to decide the .date of election.

8. We further make it clear that all the steps be taken by all the parties concerned in the matter for the purpose of elections in respect of

all the Bar Councils where the term of the existing members have alreac!y expired or to be expired. We further make it clear that although this order has been passed in favour of the verification only for the purpose D of the election but it would also include for the purpose of the verification . of all other learned lawyers who have already applied within the time stipulated by this Court.

9. We direct all the State Bar Councils to take necessary steps and to conclude all proceedings by 31.12.2017 and send a reply to the Bar Council oflndia. Thereafter, the Bar Council of India, after receiving all the replies from the State Bar Councils, would file a status report.

10. We, hereby; authorize the Bar Council oflndia to notify all the State Bar Councils, by way of publication in two leading newspapers, that they must take all steps to complete the process before 31.12.2017.

11. The Bar Council oflndia is directed to request a retired Judge of the Supreme Court in order to control and supervise the verification process and preparation of Electoral Rolls. We direct the Bar Council of India to take all steps in this regard immediately in order to do \he needful.

All concerned are directed to render full assistance and cooperation to G the Yerification Committee. List the matter in the second week of January, . 2018 on a Non-Miscellaneous Day.

Devika Gujral Matters adjourned . .