SC: No Ban on Lawmakers from Practising as Advocates

Legal DesireNews, Judgments, Supreme Court7 years ago537 ViewsShort URL

The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea seeking to ban lawmakers from practising as advocates, saying that the Bar Council of India rules do not prohibit them.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud on 9 July had reserved the order on the PIL filed by BJP leader and advocate Ashwini Upadhyay seeking to bar lawyer-lawmakers (MPs, MLAs, MLCs) from practising in courts during their tenure in legislature.

The PIL was filed by BJP leader Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay seeking to ban public servants, elected representatives and members of judiciary from simultaneously practising other professions, and to declare it as criminal misconduct.

The BCI formed a sub-committee to prepare a report on this issue and it decided that legislators can indeed be allowed to practice as lawyers. Some of the names that were under the radar included Kapil Sibal, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, KTS Tulsi, P Chidambaram, Vivek Tankha, K Parasaran, Bhupendra Yadav, Meenakshi Lekhi, Pinaki Mishra, Satish Mishra and Ashwini Kumar.

Attorney General K K Venugopal said such a ban is not correct or justifiable as being an MP/MLA is not a full-time job. The attorney general added that there cannot be any “prohibition” as membership of Parliament not a job under the Government of India.

According to BCI Rule 49, “An advocate shall not be a full-time salaried employee of any person, government, firm, corporation or concern, so long as he continues to practise and shall, on taking any such employment, intimate the fact to the BCI and shall cease to practise as an advocate, so long he is in such employment.”

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