BCI (CoP) Rules: Now petition in Supreme Court for computerised verification

A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court praying that the verification of lawyers envisaged by the Bar Council of India should be carried out using computerised technology instead of undertaking the exercise manually..The petition, which has been filed by seven advocates, came up for hearing today before Justices Pinaki Ghose and Amitava Roy, who tagged the case with the main matter..The petitioners have contended that in the era of information technology, efficient software should be used to carry out the verification of lawyers instead of undertaking a manual exercise..They have submitted that computerised verification could be an efficient tool to prepare categories of lawyers and formulate a database of lawyers. Besides, it could be linked to the birth and death register maintained by the government and therefore, update itself as and when an advocates dies..That apart, the petitioners have also prayed for declaring the BCI (CoP) Rules as unconstitutional and also called for ouster of current office bearers of BCI..The court did not issue notice but tagged the case with the main matter. It will now be heard on September 30..The CoP Rules, which were introduced in order to weed out the undesirable elements in the bar, required state bar councils to verify the certificates of practice of all advocates on their rolls within six months..However, these rules ended up being challenged before a number of High Courts, including the Karnataka High Court..When the matter reached the Supreme Court in August last year, the proceedings in various High Courts were stayed. Later that year, the apex court refused to stay the Rules, making it clear that the BCI was to free to continue with the processes initiated under the Rules..On May 10 of this year, the Court had directed all state Bar Councils to complete the verification process of advocates and to submit their report to the BCI by June 30. This date was later pushed to September 30, with the court also directing that impending elections at state bar councils would be held irrespective of whether the verification of lawyers is completed by this date.