Bar Association Undertakes To Not Obstruct Work Of Legal Aid Defence Counsel; Supreme Court Closes Contempt Proceedings

The Supreme Court on Monday closed the contempt proceeding initiated against the officer bearers of the Bharatpur Bar Association, Rajasthan, who had allegedly obstructed the work of legal aid defence counsel appointed by the Legal Services Authority.

Previously, the Apex Court had stayed the letter issued by Bharatpur Bar Association Committee suspending three legal aid defence counsels from the Association.

The bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha closed the matter after taking note of the submission of the counsel for the newly elected body of the Bharatpur Bar Association that the membership of petitioners and similarly situated persons to the association had been reinstated. The association also undertook that there will be no obstruction to persons acting as legal defense counsel, in pursuing their profession.

The counsel for the erstwhile Association stated that that no strike had been declared and that no steps have been taken to prevent the petitioners or similarly situated members of Bar in pursuing their profession as legal defense counsel.

Adv. K V Upadhyaya appeared for the newly elected association and Adv. Anuj Bhandari appeared for the erstwhile association. 

“it is not expedient in the interest of justice to pursue the exercise of the contempt jurisdiction any further. However, the concerned members of the Bar are placed on notice that this Court will be constrained to take recourse to the coercive arm of law, should any incident occur in the future. There shall be no impediment in the work of legal defense counsel.” The Court stated in its order.

The petitioners had approached the Supreme Court alleging that their work as legal aid defence counsel was being obstructed by the office bearers of the Bar Association Committee, Bharatpur, Rajasthan.

The petitioners, Advocates Purna Prakash Sharma, Puneet Kumar Garg, and Madhavendra Singh, who were appointed as legal aid defence counsel by the legal services authority, had sought the initiation of contempt proceedings against the office-bearers, including the president of the bar association, for their ‘wilful and severe disobedience’ to the law as laid down in a landmark judgement on professional ethics, Ex-Capt. Harish Uppal v. Union of India, AIR 2003 SC 739. The Harish Uppal bench had soundly rejected the right of lawyers to go on strike or give a call for boycott.

The petitioners had been accused of “opposing and weakening the movement” and “breaking the association” by the Bar Committee Association. Although they were initially served with a show cause notice by the office-bearers, eventually, their memberships were suspended for failing to fall in line. The petitioners has sought the intervention of the top court against the office-bearers for “violating its directions by calling strikes and halting the court’s work with the ulterior motive of protesting against the actions of the National Legal Services Authority”. “The joint voice of the associations has failed the National Legal Services Authority and the Rajasthan Legal Services Authority,” the petitioners had claimed.

This legal aid defence counsel scheme, which engages lawyers full-time to exclusively devote their effort to provide legal aid, assistance and representation to persons accused or convicted of crimes, was initially introduced in sessions courts in a few districts across the country as a pilot project but is gradually being extended to other parts of India as well as to other criminal courts. This is vastly different from the most predominant model of dispensing legal aid, which is by assigning cases to empanelled lawyers who also have private practices.

Case Details: Purnaprakash Sharma V. Yashwant Singh Faujdar, Contempt Petition (Civil) No 726 of 2023 in Writ Petition (Civil) No 132 of 1988

Click here to read/download the order