The Supreme Court directs former senior advocate and high-profile criminal lawyer RK Anand to donate Rs 20 lakh to the Bar Council of India for developing the library or computer centre of a lower tier college, and also take up only free legal aid cases for one year.
The court presented this course as an alternative to the rulebook sentence of six months of imprisonment for his conviction for contempt of court. It asked him to choose between the two options within a week.
Anand was convicted in 2009 for attempting to influence a key witness in the BMW hit-and-run case. He was then stripped of his senior designation.
He had sought permission from the SC to argue before it and had submitted that since the 2008 Delhi HC ban on his practice he had been providing only free legal aid.
A bench of Justices G S Singhvi, Aftab Alam and C K Prasad said: “If we write an order, no useful purpose will be served by putting this gentleman to this kind of punishment. It would be beneficial if the knowledge, skill and practice of this man is put to better use.” [TOI]
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He may have the knowledge and skill and practice. But one needs to see what use did he put all of that to AND while he was putting it to such use, did he have other legal options open?
...and what happens after one year?
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