RESPECTING THE OLD
This article refers to the history and
functions of Bar Council as well as duties and traditions of a lawyer.
This speech was delivered on
16.03.2013 in a function organised by Chhattisgarh State Bar Council to felicitate the lawyers completing
50 years of practice.
It is a
privilege and honour to preside over a function organised by Chhattisgarh State
Bar Council, the ultimate conscious keeper of the lawyers in the State;
especially the one to felicitate lawyers completing 50 years in the profession.
Since
establishment of first British court in 1672, the legal profession has travelled a long distance. At that time, admission of
attorneys was placed in the hands of the Governor-in-Council.
Mayor's
Courts were established in the Presidency towns around 1726 with an appeal to
Governor-in-Council and then to the Privy Council. They took the right to admit
or dismiss an attorney in their own hands.
The Supreme
Courts were established in the Presidency towns (1774 in
In Mufasil towns, the situation was
different. Vakils had started appearing in the courts
of Nawabs; Bengal Regulation VII of 1793 permitted
admissions of persons (pleaders) to plead.
After
establishment of the High Courts, six grades of legal practitioners, namely (a)
Advocates, (b) Attorneys (Solicitors), (c) Vakils,
(d) Pleaders, (e) Mukhtars, and (f) Revenue Agents came about. The
Legal Practitioners Act, 1879 brought them under one system, the jurisdiction
of the High Courts.
The Legal
Practitioners Act 1879 provided only 'person' to be enrolled. As at that time, the courts world over were holding
that women were not included in the word 'person', similar interpretation was
given to the word 'person' in this Act. The women were not permitted to be
enrolled.
In 1916 {In
re Regina Guha ILR 44 Calcutta 290= 35 IC 925
(29.8.1916)}, a five judge bench of the Calcutta High Court rejected the
application of a woman for enrolment.
The Allahabd High Court enrolled a woman named Cornelia Sorabji on
The Legal
Practitioners (Women) Act, 1923 was enacted to overrule full bench decisions of
The Indian
Bar Councils Act, 1926 required each High Court to constitute a Bar Council.
The Bar Council was entrusted to decide all matters about legal education,
qualification for enrolment, discipline and control of the legal professionals
but the real power lay with the High Courts that retained the power to admit or
refuse admission to enrol an advocate. It also
provided that a rule be framed that women will not be disqualified to be
enrolled as an advocate on the ground of sex alone.
The
Advocates Act, 1961 was a step further. It has entrusted the control in the hands
of lawyers: they select their own Bar Council that enrols
and disciplines them. Thus, now a great responsibility lies on the shoulders of
the Bar Councils to keep up the high traditions of the advocates. It is because
of these rich customs that the advocates were able to command respect and play
important role in a nation's development.
The lawyers
played a major role in our freedom struggle. Mahatma Gandhi,
Mohammad Ali Jinnah,
Jawarhal Nehru, Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, Dr. Rajendra Prasad and Dadabhai Naoroji, were lawyers. Lawyers have also played a prominent
role during emergency, the dark period in our independent
Many seem to
agree with Jonathan Swift's observation in Gulliver's travels (A Voyage to the
Country of the Houyhnhnms) that '[lawyers
are] a society of men bred up with their youth to prove that black is white and
white is black accordingly as they are paid.' At another place he says,
that '[they have] a peculiar cant and jargon of their own that no
mortal can understand.'
The Bar
Council has to make efforts to change the public perception and inculcate high
traditions. This does not happen, when it calls for boycotting the courts: it
rather puts them down. This is how Fali S Nariman, a leading member of lawyers' fraternity explains
in his book '
'We demean ourselves and our profession when
we resolve to strike work, and so paralyse the
working of the court, tribunals and statutory authority where public cases and
causes demand our expertise, our intercession and assistance.'
The Bar
council will do well to amend it ways.
The other
guiding principle in changing the mindset of the society and keeping up
traditions is to 'encourage the young and respect the old '. I am happy that Chhattisgarh State Bar Council has organised
this function to honour the lawyers who have
completed 50 years in the profession. They are respecting the old. My good
wishes to the Chhattisgarh State Bar Council to
successfully bear the responsibilities entrusted to it.
Jai Hind.