The Madras High Court today said unruly elements should be prevented from contesting the elections to the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry scheduled to be held on March 28.
It issued a set of directions to the Tamil Nadu DGP and returning officer, among others, to ensure that free and fair polls were held.
"It is shameful and unfortunate that election to the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry is conducted like high stake bye-election where the political parties will throw enormous money to woo the voters," a division bench of Justices N Kirubakaran and R Tharani said.
The bar council election is no different from the general election where money power, corruption, among others, are synonyms, the court observed.
It quashed a Bar Council of India order deferring its approval to a resolution passed by the BCTP, laying down several conditions, including a 10-year continuous practice, for contesting the polls to the body, three days after another bench had stayed the order.
Only members with wide exposure to various laws and sufficient years of standing in the Bar can discharge vital functions of the bar councils, it said.
"Whereas the reality is something shocking and disturbing," the court said.
"Mostly, persons, who make money through real estate business and not practising in courts, having communal backing, distributing free gifts, spending in lakhs and even more than a crore, without any practice in law, much less any good practice, are elected," it said.
If this is the quality of the members elected, one can imagine as to how they would discharge their functions as members of the statutory body which prescribes standards of legal education, professional conduct and etiquette for advocates, it said.
The court was passing orders on pleas filed by some advocates before the Madurai Bench challenging the BCI order, deferring a resolution passed by the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry (BCTP) amending certain provisions for contesting the polls.
According to the petitioners, the BCI without approving the amended rules passed by the BCTP simply deferred the matter without taking a decision.
The court said at the time of notification of the polls, the amended rules had reached the BCI. The BCI cannot defer its decision citing issuance of election notification, it said.
The bench also cited a report filed by Justice K P Sivasubramanian who was appointed as a judge commissioner to oversee and monitor the process of the bar council elections, 2011.
Taking into consideration, the report of Justice Sivasubramanian and the criminal background of elected bar council members, the special committee, the BCTP, had rightly resolved to make amendments to the conduct of BCTP election rules, it said.
The bench also directed appointing more high court judges along with justice Akber Ali who was already appointed as observer to conduct the elections.
If no decision is taken by the BCI, then the efforts taken by the special committee members to prevent the criminal elements with money and muscle power from contesting the election would become futile, it said.
It directed the BCI to take a decision at a meeting on February 18 with regard to election conduct and eligibility rules passed by the special committee.
The bench said unruly elements, non-practising advocates, candidates with criminal background should be prevented from contesting the bar council elections.
The bench also directed that the candidates should disclose their assets, including their bank accounts and that of family members and to file their income tax returns at least for immediate five years, and pending criminal cases.
The failure to disclose pending criminal cases should automatically debar the candidates, if brought to the notice of the returning officer, it said.
The bench then directed the DGP to verify and give a report regarding antecedents of the contestants whose names have been forwarded by the BCTP on or before February 26.
The DGP was also directed to give appropriate police protection during the poll process by armed reserve police right from dispatch of ballot papers from Chennai to all the 169 polling booths, except the High Court campus in Chennai and Madurai, till elections are declared.
Earlier, a division bench of justices C T Selvam and N Sathish Kumar had on a plea by a lawyer stayed the order and issued notice to the standing counsel for the BCI.
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