Bar Council of Delhi welcomes SC judgement quashing disciplinary rules against lawyers

The Bar Council of Delhi (BCD) Thursday welcome the Supreme Court verdict quashing certain disciplinary rules against advocates, including debarring a lawyer from practising.

The BCD said it appreciates the observations of the apex court that the Bar councils have a crucial role to play in a democratic society to ensure protection of human rights.

The apex court on January 28 struck down certain amended Rules of the Madras High Court and observed that if the bar fails to perform the duty independently and becomes a "sycophant", it ultimately results in denigrating of the judicial system and judiciary itself.

"Role of Bar in the legal system is significant. The Bar is supposed to be the spokesperson for the judiciary as Judges do not speak," the bench said.

"It is the duty of the Bar to protect honest judges and not to ruin their reputation and at the same time to ensure that corrupt judges are not spared," it added.

BCD Chairman K C Mittal, in a statement, said the apex court had upheld the autogeny and dignity of the Bar and has held that Bar is independent of bench.

"Under the Advocates Act, 1961, the Bar enjoys the autonomous status having disciplinary control assigned to the disciplinary committee of the State Bar Councils and the Bar Council of India," BCD said.

"The independence of Bar is on equal footing, it cannot be ignored and compromised and if lawyers have the fear of judiciary or from elsewhere, that is not conducive to the effectiveness of judiciary itself, that would be self-destructive. Independent Bar and independent bench form the backbone of the democracy and are complementary to each other," it said.

In the strongly-worded verdict, the apex court also said that criticising judges in the media by lawyers has become very common and attributing "political colours" to judgments amounted to "sheer contempt".

It has said, however, that power of contempt with the court is a weapon like "Bhramastra", to be used sparingly.

The apex court has also said that cases cannot be decided by "media trial" and the bar and bench have their own in-built machinery to deal with grievance and no outside interference can be allowed.

Judges who are attacked are not supposed to go to the press or the media to ventilate their point of view, it has added.

Besides, the verdict said that lawyers are not supposed to be "money guzzlers" and should not involve themselves in influencing the fair decision making process.