It has been a difficult time over the past few months and apparently mixed emotions prevail among the lawyers and law graduates who are 35 years and above when they joined law course in 2009 in various colleges in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and other parts of India. Around 400 enrolled and practising advocates are currently facing suspension based on interim order passed by the single bench headed by Justice Kirubakaran in WP (MD) 10315/13, while others law graduates are not allowed to enrol.

The aforementioned writ petition was filed by Peter Ramesh Kumar who prayed for removal of lawyers with criminal background from bar and those enrolled and practicing law without having any basic qualifications. The petitioner argued that a handful of law colleges in the States of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and others primarily functioned as degree mills selling law degrees without having any concern for legal profession. These colleges and their affiliated universities did not seem to have taken any major step forward so far.

The petition also argued that these colleges had admitted several students without any basic qualifications and these colleges were only concerned about money and had no regards whatsoever for legal education and the noble profession.  To everyone’s surprise, the court hearing this petition took suo moto action and impleaded a lengthy list of respondents such as Bar Council of India, Bar Council of Tamil Nadu, a list of universities, bar associations, secretary of the state, and others.  The court while ordering the TN Bar Council to verify criminal background of each law graduate before admitting them into bar, also ordered for suspension of practising advocates that took admission in law courses in the year 2009 onwards in violation of The Bar Council of India, Rules of Education, 2008 schedule III clause 28 which stipulates that general category students seeking admission for BA (law) courses should not be above 20 while the age limit for the reserved category is 22 years and for 3-year law courses, 30 and 35 respectively.

There are reports from unknown sources that advocates representing the respondents were not allowed to represent themselves properly and a counsel was beaten by a group of lawyers. One wonders why none of the respondents’ counsels failed to bring it to the court’s notice that the rule was already repealed on September 28, 2013 at all and the interim order was passed in March 2014.  The controversial rule had already been repealed by Bar Council of India in September 2013 while Bar Council of Tamil Nadu wanted to stick to it, blaming the interim order.

A regular practitioner at Madras HC could not have missed noticing the increasing number of writ petitions filed by parties affected by this interim order. Already three practising advocates sought stay on March 25, 2014 on suspension orders passed by Bar Council of Tamil Nadu.

While there is no doubt that every attempt should be made to keep the standards of bar at high, it is a debatable what age has to do with legal education and enrollment. On the other hand it is interesting to note that the TN State Bar Council is allowing candidates who graduated in law literally a decade ago and most of them were previously employed at various state and central government organizations and seem to have taken voluntary retirement to become advocates. What kind of value addition would these candidates bring to the legal profession? Therefore, the interim order becomes rather debatable if it is really intended to serve its purpose or the court was simply misled.

The interim order fails to address the following:

1.       Those joined law in or before 2008;
2.       Those who did law a decade ago, worked for government and other private sector companies and then enrol to start their second innings in career;
3.       Those who enrolled at other bar councils and later get transferred to TN Bar.

There seems to be no other action from State Bar Council other than the suspension of these 400 odd advocates currently practising law. As a matter of act, these candidates were the easier target as a list could be easily prepared, while others who flouted the rules and sought enrollment by fraud seem unaffected. And a lot of other questions still remain unanswered!