As first reported by Live Law, the Supreme Court has upheld the right of foreign lawyers to fly in on a temporary basis to India to advise clients, as well as finding that foreign lawyers should be allowed to conduct international arbitrations in India.
Also in line with predictions, and in a welcome fillip to the Modi regime, the bench passed the ball to the government, asking it and the Bar Council of India (BCI) to come up with rules governing foreign lawyers’ entry.
This is not unexpected, considering the proceedings so far.
According to LiveLaw, the bench of justices Adarsh Kumar Goel and UU Lalit held:
(i) that foreign lawyers may visit India for a temporary period on a fly in and fly out basis, for the purpose of giving legal advice to their clients in India regarding foreign law, and
(ii) that foreign lawyers cannot be debarred to come to India and conduct international commercial arbitration proceedings.
News18 also reported:
About arbitration, the Court said that there was no absolute right foreign firms had to participate in arbitration involving foreign laws and that it would only be permissible on the basis of the type of the agreement as well as the sanction under Sections 32 and 33 of the Act.
The bench further said that BPOs, LPOs etc would not be allowed to provide services, which, in pith and substance, amount to advocacy but they could render all other services.
threads most popular
thread most upvoted
comment newest
first oldest
first
Dont forget to carry your deo.
1. Ignores that Indian lawyers can qualify abroad through exams. Also, the Australian government has recently given Jindal law school recognition whereby graduates can give a few basic papers and qualify as solicitors in Australia.
2. Many LPOs giving research support for litigation. BCI elements can interpret it to mean practice and harass them.
3. BCI is incompetent to handle this. Their members are not proper lawyers, can barely speak English and have a history of corruption.
4. Leaves legal education in a crisis. The NLUs were set up to emulate the IITs and IIMs. But while IIT and IIM grads can find jobs in MNCs, law graduates have more limited options. Senior academicians like Prof Ranbir Singh and Madhav Menon have also supported liberalisation.
5. When you allow advice on "foreign law" it leaves some ambiguities. Various domestic laws are a product of international conventions and our courts often cite English case law. So, for example, if I am arguing a complex patent law case where I am citing provisions of the WTO TRIPS Agreement and English case law and someone from a UK firm flies down to advise me on how it applies to the Indian case, is that practising foreign law?
Thus, I advise my young lawyers friends to instead go for higher studies in the US, UK, Singapore, Australia, Canada, New Zealand etc and hunt for jobs there. If necessary, do an MBA and leave the legal profession. The Indian government has never cared for the educated urban upper middle class. It has only pampered crony capitalists. So why stay here? As the saying goes, vote with your feet.
The problem is that the indian firms are scared that their talent will go to these better foreign firms and they can no longer exploit good talent by giving them sub par salaries, setting unrealistic goals and witholding aptly deserved bonuses simply because they could not make them their million a year.
Ram (graduate from GLC, Mumbai) is a LAWYER who lives in a chawl.
The income he earns is meagre in comparison to his hard work. He doesn't have most of the modern-life luxuries.
Life has given him every reason to complain about.
Yet, Ram never ceases to smile.
Look around, in every nook and corner of our country, we will find countless such Rams, inspiring and teaching us wonderful life lessons through their affectionate smiles.
So, Supreme Court decision is right.
And every associate....
1. It's ok to beat up women for going to pubs.
2. It's ok for Indian lawyers to remain underpaid and exploited.
If this is the state of the country better to leave
It is high time you show the other side of the coin. To begin with, please show how many Indians can qualify in the US after an LLM, and how easy it is for Indians (JGLS degree holders) to qualify as lawyers in Australia.
threads most popular
thread most upvoted
comment newest
first oldest
first