Summonses issued to Saluja's lawyers cause unrest among legal fraternity

The legal fraternity raises alarms after ED summons senior advocates Datar and Venugopal over advice in the Religare-Care Health ESOP case, citing threats to legal independence

Not taking kindly to the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED’s) summons -- later withdrawn -- to two senior advocates Pratap Venugopal and Arvind Datar, legal experts have said though the agency can send such notices, this should be done only in the rarest of the rare cases.

 

“Normally and ideally unless the ED has concrete clear and irrefutable evidence as to the complicity of the lawyer in the matter of circumvention of any criminal law, a lawyer is a professional and the rules of confidentiality govern the relations with the clients and therefore the lawyer should not ideally be subject to any