Justice Kirubakaran follows through on crusade to save the Legal Profession

In furtherance of his endeavour to weed out criminal elements in the Madras Bar, Justice N Kirubakaran has passed fresh directions to aid the verification process of enrolled lawyers..Recognising that there are legitimate threats to the members tasked with the process of verification, Justice Kirubakaran has also ordered armed police protection for S Prabhakaran, Co-Chairman of the Council of India, and C Rajakumar, Secretary of the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. Armed police protection will also be provided for the Bar Council premises where the verification process is to take place..Justice Kirubakaran was informed that Prabhakaran had received threatening WhatsApp messages, plausibly from unruly elements apprehensive that they were going to be removed from the rolls post verification..As regards the verification process, it was opined that verification should begin at the stage of schooling itself. The Court has directed that in addition to law degrees, the Class 10 and 12 school certificates of lawyers also be scrutinised. Such thorough verification, the judge pointed out, is essential to ensure a clean profession. This is because,.“the persons who enrolled with purchased law degrees without any basic education are feared to be outnumbering genuine advocates. If elections are conducted without verification, only the persons with fake and irregular degrees and persons with criminal background would dominate the proposed election. Hence, thorough verification of all certificates is needed.”.For this reason, Justice Kirubakaran has directed that the instant order be placed before the Central Verification Committee headed by former judge of the Supreme Court Justice Anil R Dave, to get appropriate directions to verify school certificates as well as basic degrees and law degrees of the enrolled persons, to weed out,.Persons who got enrolled without basic educational qualifications.Persons who enrolled after retirement by obtaining law degrees while in service fraudulently, in absentia, while working as full time government/private employees.Persons who enrolled with open university degrees.Persons who enrolled suppressing their criminal background.. Paving the way to Clean Elections.In the previous order, the Court had been informed that advocates in ad hoc committees, formed under Section 32 of the Advocates Act, were continuing in their posts long after the expiry of their term. At the same time, these members had also intended to contend for future elections. This was in square violation of the Advocates Act as well as the Supreme Court directive in Ajayinder Sangwan v Bar Council of Delhi and other..However, pursuant to the order of the Court, a new committee had been constituted under Section 8A of the Advocates Act with the Advocate General as ex-officio Chairman and two other members – Senior Advocate R Singaravelan and Advocate Chandrasekharan..The Court was informed that a special committee has been constituted for expediting the preparation of the voters’ list and the electoral roll. The committee comprises Singaravelan and Chandrsekharan, as well as Senior Advocate S Silambanan and Advocates N Rajan, and Narmada Sampath..The matter will be heard next on November 17..Read copy of Order below.