Criminal cases against 6,500 Tamil Nadu lawyers pending

The process of weeding out such criminal and bogus lawyers has been an ongoing one. But the issue gained significance in 2013 with MHC realising that many criminals enter the legal profession, purchasing law degrees from neighbouring States, without even undergoing the course. The High Court had ordered antecedent verification of the prospective candidates, before enrolment, through police. Along with this, the antecedents of those registered were also subjected to a check. 

Based on a direction from Justice N Kirubakaran, the status report filed by the Public Prosecutor recently revealed that from October 1, 2013 to May 31, 2017 criminal cases persist against as many as 6,500 advocates indulging in vacating houses and other crimes including civil cases. The judge on offering four weeks’ time to conduct the investigation and file a status report, also directed handing over the list to the BCI to verify whether the said persons are on its rolls and submit a report regarding the action taken against them.

In fact, the Bar Council of TN and Puducherry on September 21, prohibited two advocates, B William and PM Basil from Kanniyakumari, from practising before any courts in the Chennai Metropolitan area till the disposal of the trial proceedings in a murder case initiated in the file of the VII additional Sessions Judge, City Civil Court in Chennai.

Moreover, the BCI had come up with a verification process in 2015 to step up the cleansing process and removal of non-practising lawyers from the rolls. But till date, out of the 90,000 lawyers registered in the bar, a mere 36,000 of them have offered the certificates for verification based on a directive from the SC. A case has also been registered against three of them for providing bogus graduation certificates. 

S Prabhakar, co-chairman, BCI, said, “Those who fail to subject themselves for verification will not be allowed to practise. Moreover, they ought to be in possession of ID cards issued by the Bar Council to continue with their practice and efforts are on to digitalise all the details to enable public to check as to whether the advocates are registered with the bar before hiring them.”