The PTI reported that the Madras high court ordered the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry to enrol law student R Nagendran as an advocate within four weeks despite an “unlawful assembly” criminal case pending against him (and 23 others) because he had taken part in a protest against liquor while a student at Coimbatore.

The division bench of justices V Ramasubramanian and K Ravichandrabaabusaid that no trial had commenced against Nagendran and that there were no allegations that he had indulged in any violence or behaviour likely to damage property while protesting. The bar council contended that the petitioner would have to await the outcome of the criminal case against him and referred to a series of orders passed by the high court where it was held that the criminal antecedents of the candidates seeking enrolment should be verified by the bar council and that the nobility and purity of the profession could not be allowed to be sullied by the entry of anti social elements into the profession.

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The bench observed:

The prohibitive order issued by the judge has to be understood in the right perspective and cannot be applied blindfold to all types of cases where criminal complaints came to be registered against individuals... One of the ideals of our Constitution is to raise the level of nutrition and the standard of living of the people of the country and the improvement of public health. The protest/demonstration organised by the group of students, including the petitioner, was actually towards fulfilment of this fundamental duty.

The mere fact that he was part of a group which just stood in front of a liquor shop and shouted slogans, without anything more, cannot make him guilty of an offence, as they were only exercising their fundamental right under Article 19(1)(b) and performing their fundamental duty under Article 51-A for impressing upon the State the need to follow the Directive Principle of State Policy enshrined in Article 47.