Bar Council of India’s duty is to maintain dignity, restore glory of legal profession: SC

The Supreme Court has slammed the Uttar Pradesh Bar Council over non appearance in a matter of fake claim petitions involving advocates and said it is the duty of the Bar Council of India and the bar body to maintain the dignity and restore the glory of the legal profession.

A bench of justices M R Shah and Sanjiv Khanna noted that despite their strong observations against the Bar Council of Uttar Pradesh on October 5, nobody appeared on behalf of the bar body.

”There is no representation on behalf of the Bar Council of U.P. Filing of the fake claim petitions is a very serious matter. It ultimately affects the credibility of the institution as a whole. Legal profession is always considered to be a very noble profession and such things of filing fake claim petitions in the Courts cannot be tolerated. ”It is the duty of the Bar Council of the State and the Bar Council of India to maintain the dignity and restore the glory of the legal profession. In the present case, unfortunately the Bar Council of U.P. is not at all serious and as observed hereinabove insensitive,” the bench said.

”Under the circumstances, we have no other alternative but to direct the Chairman and the Secretary of the Bar Council of UP to remain present before this Court on the next date of hearing to assist the Court, ” the bench in its November 16 order said.

The apex court also took note of a status report filed by the SIT,constituted in compliance of the order dated October 7, 2015 passed by the Allahabad High Court, that out of total 92 criminal cases in various districts registered till date, of which 28 advocates have been named as accused persons in 55 cases, the investigation has been concluded in 32 cases. ”In the rest of the cases, the investigation is stated to be pending. It is stated that consequent to the direction passed by the High Court of Allahabad, Lucknow Bench, Lucknow to the SIT for investigation of the cases of suspicious claims, total 233 suspicious claims of various insurance companies have been dismissed or dismissed in default or not pressed due to of which various claim petitions claiming amount of Rs 3,00,76,40,000 have been rejected by the tribunals. ”It is very unfortunate that despite the fact that the FIRs have been filed as far as back in the year 2016-2017, still the investigation is reported to be pending. Even in the cases where charge sheets have been filed, no charge has been framed by the courts below,” the apex court noted.

The counsel for Bar Council of India stated at the Bar that despite the fact that Bar Council of Uttar Pradesh is not cooperating and sending the names of the advocates who are indulged in such illegal activities of filing such fake claim petitions, if the BCI receives the names of the advocates involved in filing fake claim petitions necessary disciplinary action shall be taken by the BCI against them. ”We direct the SIT to send to the counsel for the BCI the list of advocates involved in filing the fake claims against whom the FIRs/charge sheets are filed within a period of three days from today so that further disciplinary action can be taken by the BCI as stated by Shri Prasad, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the BCI,” the bench said.

The top court had earlier said that SIT was constituted pursuant to the order passed by the Allahabad High Court for conducting enquiry and investigation of the cases related to causing loss in crores of rupees to the insurance companies as back from 2015 and despite the same, the investigation/enquiry has not been completed till date.