BCI Drafts Proposal For Amendments To Advocates Act, Wants To Regulate Foreign Law Firms, Conduct CLAT, Etc

The Bar Council of India has proposed to amend the Advocates Act 1961, through an internally regulated circular, as reported by Legally India. If implemented, the set of proposals could very well overhaul the regulation of legal profession in the country.The move follows the recent observations made by the Supreme Court of India in Mahipal Singh Rana vs. State of Uttar Pradesh, wherein the Court had noted an urgent need to review the provisions of the Advocates Act dealing with regulatory mechanism for the legal profession. A three Judge Bench comprising Justice Anil R. Dave, Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel had also requested the Law commission and Government of India to take appropriate steps in this regard. In view of above, LCI had undertaken a study and requested the BCI and all State Bar Councils, Bar Association of the Supreme Court and Advocates on Records Association of Supreme Court, Advocates Associations’ in the High Courts and their respective Benches to send their comments regarding the same.Major proposals: Common Law Admission TestThe proposal intends to statutorily provide the BCI with the power to conduct a Common Entrance Test for admission in the institutions imparting Legal Education in the country. In the Counter- Affidavit filed in response to Prof. Shamnad Basheer’s petition for permanent CLAT body, BCI had already offered to conduct the Common Law Entrance Test.Laying special emphasis on its power to regulate legal education in the country as per Advocates Act, 1961, BCI had submitted that the admissions to NLUs are being made on the basis of an admission test conducted by a non-statutory body, even though “a statutory body regulating the legal education in the Country is duly constituted and is capable enough to conduct such admission tests.” In the light of this, the BCI now intends to give a statutory basis to the proposal. You may read the LiveLaw article here. Law firms and foreign lawyersThe proposed amendment defines Law Firms to include partnerships, limited liability partnerships (LLPs), private or public limited companies and any other partnerships which are not statutorily registered but are formed, nevertheless, for practicing law.The definition of the term ‘Advocate’ would also be amended to include a law firm and a foreign lawyer registered by the Bar Council of India under the Act. This proposal hence secures law firms and foreign lawyers with the right to practice before Courts and Tribunals in India, unlike the current law which only allows individual Advocates to do so.The BCI would regulate Law firms, individual Advocates and foreign lawyers through rules of professional conduct, as formulated separately for all three categories. Law firms would be enrolled in a roll of law firms which would be separate from the roll of individual advocates. The recognition and registration of foreign lawyers for the purpose of law practice in India would be done on the principle of reciprocity. VerificationThe proposed amendment empowers the BCI to formulate rules for periodical verification of antecedents, conduct, place of practice of Advocates and to make a data based web-portal of all the advocates. It would further be authorized to make rules for barring non-practicing advocates, and to bar them from voting in the elections to the State Bar Councils and to the Bar Associations.Besides, each State Bar Council and the BCI has been directed to prepare the database of every Advocate, after completion of the verification process, as provided under the Bar Council of India Certificate and Place of Practice (Verification) Rules, 2015.The draft amendments also propose to charge a fee to advocates who wish to get their names transferred from the rolls of one state bar council to that of another. The onus to fix advocates’ enrolment fees has been put on State Bar Councils. 30 per cent of such fee would be deposited with the BCI.The Bar Council of India Certificate and Place of Practice (Verification) Rules, 2015 were notified in January last year. These rules mandate a “Certificate of Practice”, in the absence of which, the Advocate would not be entitled to practice law. You may read the LiveLaw story here.However, the Supreme Court had, in August last year, stayed the proceedings under the Rules, challenges to which are pending before various High Courts. You may read the LiveLaw story here.The Petition before Kerala High Court had claimed that there is a patent discrimination in the issuance of the ‘certificate of practice’ “because it is not required to be obtained by advocates enrolled after the year 2010, but only by advocates enrolled prior to that year.” The Court had then stayed the operation of the Rules in June this year. You may read the LiveLaw story here.Karnataka High Court had however stayed the operation of the rules “only in so far as the petitioner is concerned“.The Bombay Bar Association had also issued a direction asking their members to verify...

BCI Drafts Proposal For Amendments To Advocates Act, Wants To Regulate Foreign Law Firms, Conduct CLAT, Etc

Apoorva Mandhani

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