The Delhi High Court has been approached by the Bar Council of Delhi against the order of a single-judge directing it to provide details about all the pending complaints against lawyers.
The Bar council of Delhi has said that as per the Advocates Act, 1961, State Bar Councils as well as Bar Council of India (BCI) the day-to-day functioning and matters relating to disciplinary proceedings are not amenable to the writ jurisdiction of the High Courts.
The BCD has said that there is no provision for interference by way of writ jurisdiction by the High Courts or any other court, except the Supreme Court.
Last year, the Single-judge Justice Prathiba M Singh had directed BCD for providing a chart giving the details of all pending complaints against advocates, including the dates of filing of those complaints and the dates of first notices in all those matters.
The order was passed when four lawyers came to court against the notices issued to them by the BCD in pursuance of a complaint.
It was said that these advocates appeared for a litigant without proper authorisation and vakalatnama.
As per the lawyers,the present complaint was the second complaint moved on similar allegations and the earlier one was rejected by the BCD.
It was further stated that Secretary of the BCD, Sanjay Rathi, represents the person who has filed the complaint.
The single-judge then stayed the proceedings against the petitioner-advocates.
BCD in its appeal had said that as per the provisions of the Advocates Act, an appeal against the order of the state bar council like the BCD lies with the BCI and not the High Court.
As per the provisions of Section 38 of Advocates Act, any person aggrieved by an order made by the disciplinary committee of the BCI, may within sixty days of the date on which the order is communicated to him, prefer an appeal to the Supreme Court of India, the plea said.
The plea further said that only a preliminary notice has been issued to the four lawyers by the full house and the matter has not been referred to the disciplinary committee as yet.
As per the appeal, the Appellant herein is confining the present Letters Patent Appeal against the impugned order by the Ld. Single Judge, wherein powers, authority, impartiality, independence and integrity of the Bar Council of Delhi has been put under challenge.
The matter was listed for hearing before a bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Sachin Datta. The court issued notice to the four advocates and listed the matter for further consideration on April 17.