The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice to Bar Council of India (BCI) on a PIL seeking direction to BCI so it can relax rules of professional conduct and allow lawyers to advertise to get work and take up other assignments during the COVID-19 crisis.
A Bench headed by CJI SA Bobde asked BCI—which regulates the legal profession in India—to respond to the petition in two weeks.
As lawyers find it difficult to earn a decent living during the COVID-19 pandemic, the PIL sought a direction to BCI to allow them to advertise to get work and take up other assignments to survive.
Filed by advocate Chanderjeet Chanderpal, the PIL requested the top court to direct BCI to relax rules of professional conduct that debarred advocates from advertising.
Advocates should be allowed to be employed at companies on monthly retainers and earn a livelihood through other sources in these trying times, submitted Chanderpal, who is also the General Secretary of Nitya Law Society—an NGO.
Currently, BCI Rules don’t allow advocates to be on the payroll of an employer.
“Advocates are dying, landing in depression, are not having money for medical expenses for their dependents etc, there are also reports of suicides and this has happened due to closure of Courts and other legal activities as a result of COVID-19 lockdown,” the petition submitted.
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The plea read:
“There are reports of suicides as a result of no work, medical depression, Advocates’s family members expiring due to no money to pay medical fees, reports of there being domestic violence in the houses of advocates. This is widely known as the internet is full of this information. This is happening all over India and times has come that the Bar Council of India must allow relaxations within the Rules. The same is applicable to the whole of India and time has come that the Bar Council of India must allow relaxations within the rules”.
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The petitioner has asked for a long term solution as he deem it to be a must in these unprecedented crisis instead of ‘providing Rs. 5000 or 3000 per lawyer’.
It sought a direction to BCI to amend its Rules to allow advocates to get employed as legal advisors on a retainer basis and permit them to advertise through limited and specific sources to solicit chamber work with an undertaking that it shall not continue beyond March 2021.
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