Law minister Salman Khurshid, a noted legal eagle himself, proposes to enact the Legal Practitioners (Regulation & Maintenance of Standards in Professions, Protecting the Interest of Clients and Promoting the Rule of Law)  Bill, 2010, (“the Bill”) which could result in: (i)  diluting and duplicating the scope and applicability of the Advocates Act, 1961, (ii) taking away the oversight of the Bar Councils on practice of law in nine classes of legal professionals/practice, and (iii) being used by foreign law firms waiting on the fringes to start practising law in India in these so called nine class of  legal practice not constituting ‘law practice’ under Advocates Act, 1961 without the permission of the Bar Council of India (BCI). The BCI is the last man standing between foreign law firms and their entry into India.
 
Khurshid had been fairly public with ‘reformist’ (read beholden) views in his earlier innings in the ministry of corporate affairs.
 
The proposed bill promises a parallel regulator alongside the BCI, i.e., to discharge the same functions/objectives for which the Bar Councils were set up: (i) to deal with complaints of misconduct, (ii) code of conduct of lawyers, and (iii) provide legal aid to the poor, thus transgressing into the core functioning of BCI.
 
Khurshid’s purported objectives are identical in scope and spirit to the functions of the BCI and State Bar Councils, i.e., (i) to protect and promote the interest of the clients, (ii) to encourage ethical obligations of lawyers with a strong sense of duty towards the court and tribunals, where they appear  and (iii) to create legal awareness among the general public and clients of their legal rights and duties.

Apart from these, Khurshid’s Bill also has other vague and subjective objectives such as: (i) protecting and promotion of public interest, (ii) supporting constitutional principal of rule of law, (iii) improving access to justice, (iv) Promoting healthy amongst legal practitioners for improving quality of service, and (v) Promoting and maintaining adherence to the professional principles.
 
Khurshid seeks to arrogate for himself these functions, core to the functioning of these councils and further bids to do what is otherwise not allowed or explicitly banned under the Advocates Act, i.e., allow the practice of the profession of law outside the defined scope. The Advocates Act provides that there shall be only one class of persons entitled to practice law (directly or indirectly), namely, advocates. The term ‘advocate’, as defined, means the advocates entered in any role under the provisions of the Advocates Act. The nine classes of legal professionals listed in the Bill purportedly don’t constituting practice of law under the Advocates Act. The Bill empowers the Legal Services Board (“Board”) to act as a regulator for these professional and grant them licence to practice law.

This indirectly defeats the clear legislative intent behind the Advocates Act and the judgment of the Mumbai high court in the Lawyers Collective Judgment that only a person enrolled under the Advocates Act can practise law, directly or indirectly.

The Bill also doubles the procedure for dealing with complaints against advocates by requiring an aggrieved client to go through the entire proceedings of completion of pleading, discovery of document, evidence and arguments twice over, once under the Bill and again under the Advocates Act.

Khurshid singles out lawyers enrolled under Advocates Act, 1961 by the directions of the Board mandatory on BCI and non-mandatory on “other law professionals”. The Bill empowers the Board to determine and administer terms and conditions of practice of law without even having any representative character or being answerable to the advocates enrolment granted under Advocates Act. 

Ironically, a ‘consumer panel’ of handpicked persons chosen by the Board to assist the Board will have a ‘fair degree’ of representation of existing and potential clients of practicing lawyers across India without even the so called ‘clients’ (unorganised and non-existent as a body/class) having any say  to elect/nominate members to the said ‘consumer panel’. 

Are we still to see more or is it the full picture –a complainant, a government appointed ombudsman, a government appointed consumer panel, a Board to arm twist the Bar Councils, a regulator to open up  ‘practice of law’ to persons not registered under the Advocates Act!

Khurshid, in effect, seeks to have the handle of the entire judicial delivery system in the hands of a body unrepresented by its stakeholders, paving the way to next empowering the Board to appoint Judges alongside the Collegium presently in place.

What purpose will be served by creating a parallel machinery instead of strengthening the Bar Councils themselves?