Breakfast with Aney (Part III): Bar Associations and the politically active lawyer

When the “Breakfast” series was first discussed with former Advocate General Shreehari Aney, there were three topics identified. The senior counsel’s thoughts on the first topic, women in the legal profession, has already been published (Part 1 and Part 2). This time around, Aney talks about Bar Associations and a lawyer’s role in society. .Without further ado. .Anuj Agrawal: Bar Associations are unlike Bar Councils in many ways. .Shreehari Aney: A Bar Council is a creation of an Act, comparable to say, the Indian Medical Council or the Institution of Chartered Accountants, or any of these professional bodies which answer to certain statutory requirements. A Bar Association does not. That is an important distinction. .A Bar Association is a localized body formed by lawyers practicing in a particular place or specific court. It is really in the nature of a more informal club, but with specific purposes. It is a place where lawyers get together ostensibly to further the interests of their own members who practice in a particular place or in a particular specialized area of law..So in that sense, it is a body which has a sharp focus concerning specialized interests. It does not have a very wide character, and it rarely spans across a geographic area like a district or a state..AA: In your personal experience, is there a strong feeling of fraternity in these associations?.SA: Oh, of course. But its intensity varies. If you are in a small district town, say like Satara or Wardha, or even Tehsil towns like Alibag or Arvi – at those levels, the feeling of fraternity is far greater. But when you go into bigger towns, the feeling of fraternity begins to thin out. In a city like Bombay or Delhi, the feeling of fraternity is almost non-existent..AA: Why?.SA: They are too big. These are huge Bars. The Bombay High Court Bar is so huge that it has two Bar Associations – The Bombay Bar Association, and the Western India Advocates Association. And the number of members of a single Western Indian Advocates Association is equal to, if not greater than, all the members of all the Bar Associations in the whole of the Nagpur district!. There is no way that we can compare such Associations, especially when we speak of strong feelings of fraternity..Obviously the bonds of a smaller community bind tighter. You experience the feel of a community in a smaller town far more. You see the small town lawyer every day as he makes his way to court, you see him as he leaves the court, on his way home. Or you see him and his wife walking to the market; you know which college his son goes; or the family into which his daughter has married. .The lawyer community in a small town has a different perception about itself than a similar community in a metropolis. .AA: You were president of the Nagpur Bar Association. Why did you decide to take up the post?.SA: Well, there were local issues that needed to be attended. In my case, we were shifting from the original, and a somewhat inadequate [High Court] building into a new building. .The new building was of course beautifully built, but the whole High Court Bar was required to shift en-masse to the new building. Such unplanned exodus had all the making of chaos. Lawyers were ready to rush into the new building and ‘stake their claim’ on the empty rooms. Fights for territory were looming large. The fear was that if you don’t have somebody who would really guide this migration, the promised land would have been as disorganised and uncomfortable as the old Bar rooms..I had very clear ideas on how that could be done avoiding mass hysteria. New work spaces in the Bar Rooms would have to be designed to accommodate various groups of lawyers. Over the years certain lawyers had traditionally been associated with each other – a fraternity, if you will, of a Senior, and his Juniors, and at times, their juniors, who all usually shared the same rooms. Shifting several such groups into a new building where no such specified spaces existed was going to change all that in one stroke..So how would you make sure that it would all be accomplished without major warfare? You had to select and divide the new space amongst the different groups that traditionally functioned within the Bar. And add to that members who didn’t belong to any group. [You had to] keep lawyers or groups who were historically at loggerheads as far away from one another as possible – and mind you, we had several such groups. .Added to that was the problem of standardised furnishing. You couldn’t let people furnish their allotted spaces with their own choice of furniture. .AA: How did you convince the lawyers?.SA: Oh it took a long time. You sit with the members, you reason with them, you listen to them. People are not beyond reason; it may take a while but they will come around. You tell them that this is in their best interest, ask them if they want the chaotic situation to continue or whether they want something more organised..People listen. They see what you are doing, and they do come around to your point of view. Not everyone can be kept happy, but the majority of the people can..I know it’s a huge effort, and you don’t win a popularity contest when you try something like this, but it has to be done. There are no options..Actually, there is an option. And the option is disgraceful. A few years ago, in the Bombay High Court I saw grown lawyers fighting each other over a chair! And this wasn’t just a verbal disagreement. They got physical. This has to stop! Given the limited amount of space and the vast number of lawyers who use the Bar rooms, there has to be a more rational way of going about it..Given the limited amount of space and the vast number of lawyers who use the Bar rooms, there has to be a more rational way of going about it..AA: How old were you at this point of time?.SA: Oh, around 40. I had already been designated a Senior Counsel by then, so it wasn’t as if I was very young. But I was not fighting an election for the purposes of becoming popular or to gain prominence, which is what, sometimes, what Bar Association elections are used for. .Sadly, at times, some lawyers use the Bar Association elections as a means of securing posts that have the potential to bring them closer to the judges. They think it may gain them favours. I am not talking about corrupt practices, or underhand dealings, but they count on the popular perception that as office bearers of the Bar Association, their imagined closeness with judges may give them a certain amount of advantage. .But fortunately, nothing like this existed for me. So when I contested elections, it became easier for lawyers to accept me for what I was saying..AA: Do you think your experience was an exception?.SA: Yes. Because people don’t like to think much beyond their immediate comfort. Bar elections are rarely issue-based. When I spoke of shifting of the Bar as my reason [for taking office], there were other reasons as well. Things were going wrong around us which had nothing to do with the courts..AA: For instance?.SA: Oh for instance one late November morning in 1994, police action caused the death of 114 Gowari tribals in the streets of Nagpur. Forty thousand of them had peacefully assembled to voice their protest, when there was firing and lathi charge by the police. In the ensuing stampede over one hundred and fourteen Gowaris including seventy-one women and twenty-three children were trampled to death, Nearly five hundred were injured. .Overnight, the bodies were removed, the roads washed and re-tarred, and by next morning, all evidence of the tragedy vanished. It was as if nothing had happened..I had seen the whole thing, including the bodies being removed. I told the Bar Association that this is not something that we should keep quiet about. We must protest against this. You can’t have people killed, and the whole thing vanish in thin air with no questions being asked. This has to be brought out into the open..There was some debate over whether the Association ought to be concerned with political events. But what worth are we as lawyers if we don’t speak up for larger causes?.There was some debate over whether the Association ought to be concerned with political events. But what worth are we as lawyers if we don’t speak up for larger causes? And believe me, unanimously, the Nagpur Bar passed a resolution condemning the act..In fact, perhaps for the first time in the history of lawyers, the Nagpur High Court Bar Association took a morcha all the way to the spot where these people were killed. The State Legislature’s winter session was on at Nagpur at that time, and you can imagine the impact of this action of the High Court Bar Association. .AA: Don’t you think Bar Associations should refrain from making political statements?.SA: No. Not at all. I think they should be in the thick of politics. They already are! Lawyers are half way into politics, one way or the other. Especially so when you go into smaller towns. .Why should Bar Associations not be open to taking a stand on wider social causes? A year back, I went through eleven district Bar Associations of Vidarbha explaining issues like farmers suicides, and tribal malnutrition deaths and spread of Maoists in the region. I appealed to each of the eleven Bar Associations to pass a resolution in favour of a separate state of Vidarbha. Something that Bar Association would normally not do. But all eleven District Bar Associations passed unanimous resolutions for Vidarbha’s statehood – with the exception of Washim District Bar, where one lawyer opposed..Just as a doctor is concerned with the physical ills of a society, lawyers are concerned with (the society’s) social ills. So why don’t you stand up and speak? If you have, by unofficial figures, forty thousand farmers in Vidarbha who have committed suicide, why don’t you stand up and say something is wrong here. .You have to!.But leave aside my preoccupation with Vidarbha. Why doesn’t the Bar Association stand up and say that Sabrimala or Shani Shingapur or Haji Ali situation is wrong? You can’t stop women from doing what men are allowed do. These are positions that the Bar must take. You cannot shirk your responsibilities saying, “Oh politics doosre logo ka kaam hai” (politics is for others)..AA: But that is a common justification..SA: Then that’s a way of escaping from your responsibility! .I am going back to Bentham and John Stuart Mill. To make you into anything – a lawyer, a doctor, an engineer, anything – the society has invested very heavily in you. Under the Social Contract doctrine, you are required to repay your society for whatever it has invested in you. If you have become a good lawyer, you owe something to the society. .And if you don’t speak up, then who will speak? To say that I’ll speak up if someone pays me a fee, is unconscionable..If you have become a good lawyer, you owe something to the society. And if you don’t speak up, then who will speak? To say that I’ll speak up if someone pays me a fee, is unconscionable..The Bar Associations to my mind have a very clear duty to take a stand on social issues or wrong things that are happening in the society. This is something that our Bar Associations simply do not do often enough..AA: Should Bar Associations be getting into these side-fights ?.SA: It depends. What you think are side-fights, are the main fights for me. .To give you an example, this happened when I was no longer the President of the Bar. I sat on a UNESCO body in Paris for some time, and while I was away from India, a prominent Legislator from Nagpur made a statement in the State Legislature heavily criticising Government Pleaders. He called them ignorant and incompetent. The Nagpur High Court Bar Association passed a resolution deprecating this statement, and demanded that it be removed from the Legislature’s records. I had just flown into the country, and was not involved in organising the meeting. But I did happen to be present at it. The next day the local newspapers carried a story about the Bar resolution, and named about eleven lawyers who participated in it, including me..The Legislature saw this as an act amounting to its contempt. Demanding that the Legislature should delete a portion of its proceedings directly interfered with the functioning of the Legislature and was an act of contempt. It issued notices to the Bar Association members who were named in the news-report and demanded that they apologise. All these members who received the notices apologised. .I refused. .What good is an association of lawyers if it can’t speak for its members who happened to be government pleaders? And what good is a lawyer if he won’t stand by what he has said?.What good is an association of lawyers if it can’t speak for its members who happened to be government pleaders? And what good is a lawyer if he won’t stand by what he has said?.So I was charged with contempt and tried by the House Committee headed by the then Speaker Arun Gujarati. The trial went on, witnesses were examined, documents filed, and arguments were heard. The House Committee found me guilty as charged, but refused to pass any sentence. Their report was placed before the Legislature. the House agreed that I was guilty, but observed that in view of my ‘exemplary and respectful attitude’, I need not be sentenced. .So they convicted, but declined to punish (laughs). .I’m sure there is a moral to the story, but off hand, I can’t think of what it is.. (To be continued)