Legal fraternity of India has become more active and
vocal in the recent past. Whether it is a protest strike against the
proposed higher education bill of HRD ministry or protest
against allowing foreign law firms and legal process
outsourcing (LPO) companies in India, legal fraternity has taken them
with an iron hand.
The main stress seems to be that legal practices, in
any form whatsoever, must remain within the realm of advocates
enrolled under the Advocates Act, 1961 alone. With the interim order
of the Supreme Court if India, legal practice in India, both
litigation and non litigation, has now become an exclusive
professional area for Indian advocates alone.
These concerns of Indian legal fraternity are well
justified and legally sustainable. However, legal fraternity of India
must also take care of the growing decline of standards pertaining to
legal education on the one hand and legal practice on the other. For
instance, PhDs
in the law are dying slowly and Bar Council of India (BCI)
is doing nothing in this regard.
Praveen Dalal, a Supreme Court Advocate and managing
partner of Perry4Law,
even sent e-mails to Kapil Sibal and Salman Khurshid drawing their
attentions to the growing corruption in higher legal educations in
general and PhDs in particular. However, neither Sibal nor Khurshid
has time to look at the deteriorating standards of Indian legal
education.
In these circumstances, opposing the higher
education bill proposed by the HRD ministry is absolutely justified
and legal fraternity must take a more active and direct control over
legal education in India.
Even the legal fraternity of India must make its own
house in order. The Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa has taken a
significant step in this direction. Preparation of conveyance
documents is the duty of advocates and not touts and agents. However,
many advocates adopt the practice of getting the same drafted through
touts or agents due to their busy schedule and low fees offered in a
particular case.
Now the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa has
declared that such practice is illegal and it should be stopped with
immediate effect. The council will request the state government to
curb this practice and authorise only lawyers to formally draw up
conveyance documents. Such badly drafted court documents are
frequently challenged in the courts for various reasons.
These types of initiatives are essential to ensure
good legal standards and accountability of advocates in India. There
are still many areas to cover that Bar Council of India must
immediately start covering.
