Ensure good lawyers join profession: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Bar Council of India to set in motion legal reforms to ensure quality of lawyers joining the legal profession.

A bench of Chief Justice T.S. Thakur and Uday Lalit observed that the BCI should step in and urgently reform the already over-crowded legal profession by ensuring stringent checks right at the entry stage. The CJI observed, “We can’t have free riders, half-baked lawyers when people trust them with life, liberty.”

The bench was hearing a bunch of petitions challenging the introduction of all-India bar examination before they are enrolled as advocates.

On Tuesday, the CJI observed that such an examination cannot be conducted without a statutory law. However, on Wednesday, the CJI observed, “We are not averse to the examination. We want to strengthen it for the future so that the most suitable come into the profession. We don’t want people to have black robes and do something else.”

“Any sort of pre-enrolment training would also have a salutary effect on those entering the profession. There are 2 million lawyers in this country. The profession is already over-crowded. Hence forward, we must only allow those on merit to come in.”

The CJI said, “If anyone and everyone can come for a free ride, then all kinds of malpractices will come. You can’t practice just because you have a degree. You need something more to become a lawyer.”

The CJI told BCI counsel Ardhendu Mauli Prasad. “They must be capable of taking care of the client’s interest. Justice is after all a valuable consideration.”

Just as you can’t have a half-baked doctor, you can’t have a half-baked lawyer. The BCI must introspect and lay down the foundation of such reforms.” The CJI said that every year 60,000 lawyers joined the bar. Only a fraction of them were from national law schools. The rest were from other places. The bench expressed unhappiness with the ad hoc manner in which the BCI had introduced these reforms.