Recently, the Bar Council of Delhi approached Delhi High Court challenging the orders of Justice Prathiba M Singh directing it to provide details about all the pending complaints against lawyers. The matter was listed for hearing before a bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Sachin Datta.
In the Court, the Bar Council of Delhi submitted, that as per the Advocates Act, 1961, State Bar Councils as well as the Bar Council of India (BCI) are not amenable to the writ jurisdiction of the High Courts when it comes to to their day-to-day functioning,
They also mentioned that there is no provision given for interference by way of writ jurisdiction by the High Courts or any other court, except the Supreme Court, Last Month Justice Singh directed BCD to provide full details of all pending complaints against advocates, including the dates of filing of those complaints and the dates of first notices in all those matters.
Case Brief-
Justice Singh passed an order after four lawyers came to court against the notices issued to them by the BCD in pursuance of a complaint. It was alleged that these advocates appeared for a litigant without proper authorisation and vakalatnama. However, the lawyers said that the present complaint was the second complaint that moved on similar allegations and the earlier one was rejected by the BCD. It was further stated that the Secretary of the BCD, Sanjay Rathi, represents the person who has filed the complaint.
Justice Prathiba M Singh stayed the proceedings against the petitioner-advocates.
As per the provisions of Section 38 of the Advocates Act, any person aggrieved by an order made by the disciplinary committee of the BCI, may within sixty days of the date on which the order is communicated to him, prefer an appeal to the Supreme Court of India, the plea said.
The plea by BCD also states that the case against the four advocates is at the threshold only a preliminary notice has been issued to them by the full house and the matter has not been referred to the disciplinary committee as yet.
"The Appellant herein is confining the present Letters Patent Appeal against the impugned order by the Ld. Single Judge, wherein powers, authority, impartiality, independence and integrity of the Bar Council of Delhi has been put under challenge," the appeal stated.
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