Bar Council of Delhi moves Delhi High Court against single-judge order to furnish details of pending complaints against advocates

The Bar Council of Delhi (BCD) moved the Delhi High Court against the order of a single-judge directing it to provide details about all the pending complaints against lawyers..The BCD argued that as per the Advocates Act, 1961, State Bar Councils as well as Bar Council of India (BCI) are not amenable to the writ jurisdiction of the High Courts when it comes to their day-to-day functioning and matters relating to disciplinary proceedings.Further, there is no provision for interference by way of writ jurisdiction by the High Courts or any other court, except the Supreme Court, the BCD has said..Single-judge Justice Prathiba M Singh had last month directed BCD to provide a chart giving the details of all pending complaints against advocates, including the dates of filing of those complaints and the dates of first notices in all those matters.The order was passed after four lawyers came to court against the notices issued to them by the BCD in pursuance of a complaint. It was alleged that these advocates appeared for a litigant without proper authorisation and vakalatnama.However, the lawyers said that the present complaint was the second complaint moved on similar allegations and the earlier one was rejected by the BCD. It was further stated that Secretary of the BCD, Sanjay Rathi, represents the person who has filed the complaint.The single-judge then stayed the proceedings against the petitioner-advocates. .In its appeal, BCD stated that as per the provisions of the Advocates Act, an appeal against the order of the state bar council like the BCD lies with the BCI and not the High Court.As per the provisions of Section 38 of Advocates Act, any person aggrieved by an order made by the disciplinary committee of the BCI, may within sixty days of the date on which the order is communicated to him, prefer an appeal to the Supreme Court of India, the plea said.The plea further contended that the case against the four advocates is at the threshold and only a preliminary notice has been issued to them by the full house and the matter has not been referred to the disciplinary committee as yet."The Appellant herein is confining the present Letters Patent Appeal against the impugned order by the Ld. Single Judge, wherein powers, authority, impartiality, independence and integrity of the Bar Council of Delhi has been put under challenge," the appeal stated. .The matter was listed for hearing before a bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Sachin Datta. The court issued notice to the four advocates and listed the matter for further consideration on April 17..The BCD was represented by Senior Advocate Ramesh Gupta along with advocates KC Mittal, Ajay Kumar Agarwal and Sachin Jain.