The Madras High Court on Monday sought the responses of the Central government, Bar Council of India (BCI) and Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry on a plea challenging the validity of Section 9 of Advocates Act, 1961..A Bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justices Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy issued notice to the three respondents on a plea by advocate Karthik Ranganathan. .Section 9 provides for the constitution of 'Disciplinary Committee' by the BCI and every State Bar Council to examine complaints of misconduct against advocates. The petitioner contended that disciplinary committees should comprise of retired judges rather than the present scheme of having lawyers decide cases involving other lawyers.Currently, as per Section 9, a disciplinary committee is to comprise of three lawyers, two of whom elected are by the concerned State Bar Council from amongst its members and a third one to be co-opted from non members..Section 9 reads as follows:"A Bar Council shall constitute one or more disciplinary committees, each of which shall consist of three persons of whom two shall be persons elected by the Council from amongst its members and the other shall be a person co-opted by the Council from amongst advocates who possess the qualifications specified in the proviso to sub-section (2) of section 3 and who are not members of the Council, and the senior-most advocate amongst the members of a disciplinary committee shall be the Chairman thereof.".[Read Order]
The Madras High Court on Monday sought the responses of the Central government, Bar Council of India (BCI) and Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry on a plea challenging the validity of Section 9 of Advocates Act, 1961..A Bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justices Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy issued notice to the three respondents on a plea by advocate Karthik Ranganathan. .Section 9 provides for the constitution of 'Disciplinary Committee' by the BCI and every State Bar Council to examine complaints of misconduct against advocates. The petitioner contended that disciplinary committees should comprise of retired judges rather than the present scheme of having lawyers decide cases involving other lawyers.Currently, as per Section 9, a disciplinary committee is to comprise of three lawyers, two of whom elected are by the concerned State Bar Council from amongst its members and a third one to be co-opted from non members..Section 9 reads as follows:"A Bar Council shall constitute one or more disciplinary committees, each of which shall consist of three persons of whom two shall be persons elected by the Council from amongst its members and the other shall be a person co-opted by the Council from amongst advocates who possess the qualifications specified in the proviso to sub-section (2) of section 3 and who are not members of the Council, and the senior-most advocate amongst the members of a disciplinary committee shall be the Chairman thereof.".[Read Order]