Bar Council of India’s Verification Rules stayed by SC.

Bar Council of India(BCI), with the aim to weed out fake and non-practicing lawyers, implemented the Certificate and Place of Practice (Verification) Rules. It received mixed reactions from the various quarters of the legal fraternity.

As per these rules, all the lawyers were required to submit an evidence or a proof regarding their practice in a particular city. For this, either a copy of a vakalatnama or a certified order for each year was required to be filed along with a verification form. This created a lot of hassle among the lawyers all over India, since the past 3 months.

Also, there were anomalies in the rules. Rule 4(j) of the Rules defines the term “non-practicing advocates” as that class of advocates which are enrolled with any State Bar Council but are not engaged in the practice of law in any Court. Rule 13 and Rule 20.2 disqualify such candidates from practicing in any Court in the future(primarily barring them from being a part of Bar Associations). Prima facie,this provision seems to be valid and justified, but it will have a dicey impact.

Therefore, the Supreme Court today, stayed the Certificate and Place of Practice (Verification) Rules 2015 on 10th Jun 2016. The bench of J. Pinaki Chandra Ghose and J. R.K. Agrawal, during the hearing of the Transfer Petition moved by Bar Council of India passed the following order:

“Issue notice. Dasti service, in addition, is permitted. In the meantime, no further steps be taken in the matters of which are pending in the High Courts.”

Many High Courts had already stayed the verification procedure introduced by the BCI, therefore the order of the Supreme Court is to maintain the ‘status quo’, so that the stay orders passed by the High Courts would continue, unless an express order is passed by the Supreme Court to the contrary.

About the Author

This article has been authored by Rahul Parashar, Co-Founder & Chief Legal Advisor at LegalNow & Ayushi Sharma, Founding Intern at LegalNow.