Duty Of All Genuine Lawyers To Get Their Degrees Verified : Supreme Court Forms Expert Committee To Oversee Verification

In a significant direction relating to legal profession, the Supreme Court on Monday constituted a High Powered Committee to oversee the process of verification of the degree certificates of advocates.

The committee will comprise the following–

1. Justice Deepak Gupta, former Judge of the Supreme Court (as Chairperson);

2. Justice Arun Tandon, former Judge of the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad;

3. Justice Rajendra Menon, former Chief Justice of the High Court of Delhi;

4. Mr Rakesh Dwivedi, Senior Advocate; and

5. Mr Maninder Singh, Senior Advocate

The Bar Council of India will be at liberty to nominate three members to the committee. 

A bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justice PS Narasimha and Justice JB Pardiwala passed this order after taking note of the roadblocks in the process of verification of advocates. The Committee has been asked to start work on a convenient date and to file a status report by August 31.

"Due verification of Advocates registered with State Bar Councils is or utmost importance to safeguard the integrity of administration of justice", the bench observed in the order.

"It is the duty of every genuine advocates of the country to ensure that they cooperate with the Bar Council of India in seeking to ensure that the certificates of practice are duly verified together with the underlying education degree certificate. Unless this exercise is carried out periodically, there is a great danger that the administration of justice would itself be under a serious cloud", the bench added in the order.  The bench noted with concern the statement of the BCI that lawyers without verification have become members of some State Bar Councils and that such persons may also have held judicial officers posts too.

The bench asserted that access to the judicial process cannot be granted to the persons who profess to be lawyers but do not have genuine educational qualifications or degree certificates.

Taking note of the difficulty encountered by the verification process due to the charges sought by the Universities in verifying the degree certificates,the bench directed that all universities & exam boards should verify genuineness of degrees without charging fees.

"All universities and exam boards shall verify the genuineness of degrees without charging fees and requisition by State Bar Councils shall be processed without undue delay"

In 2015, the Bar Council of India had notified the BCI Certificate and Place of Practice (Verification) Rules 2015 to identify genuine lawyers who are actively litigating before courts and tribunals.  The Rules were challenged before various High Courts and the cases were ultimately transferred to the Supreme Court.

The Court passed the present order in an application filed by an advocate practising in the Supreme Court challenging the BCI's direction issued in November 2022 to the State Bar Councils which, the petitioner claimed, had the effect of interdicting the verification process being undertaken by the State Bar Councils to scrutinise .

BCI Chairman Senior Advocate Manan Kumar Mishra told the bench that intention was not to stop verification but to ensure that verification was not done without verifying the validity and genuineness of degree certificates. Difficulties were encountered when universities demanded fees to verify degree certificates. In this backdrop, the BCI suggested the constitution of a High Powered Committee to oversee the verification of degrees.

The bench also noted that the number of advocates, which stood at 16 lakh at the material time, is currently estimated to be around 25.70 lakh. As per BCI's statement, out of 25.70 lakh advocates, about 7.55 lakh forms were received for the purposes of verification and 1.99 lakh declarations were received from Senior Advocates and Advocates-on-Record. Thus the total number of forms received is around 9.22 lakhs. From these figures, the bench inferred that the majority of advocates enrolled with the state bar council have not submitted their verification forms.

BCI raised the apprehension that many lawyers who have not given the verification forms are not qualified to practice law and many are there for extraneous purposes and that such persons have to be identified and be weeded out.

Case : Ajay Shankar Shrivastava v. BCI And Anr. WP(C) No. 82/2023  

Citation : 2023 LiveLaw (SC) 307

Bar Council of India Certificate and Place of Practice (Verification) Rules 2015- The due verification of advocates who are enrolled with the State Bar Councils, is of utmost importance to preserve the integrity of the administration of justice. Persons who profess to be lawyers, but do not either have the educational qualifications or degree certificates on the basis of which they could have lawfully granted entry to the Bar, pose a grave danger to the administration of justice to citizens. Hence, it is the duty of every genuine advocate of the country to ensure that they cooperate with the Bar Council of India which is seeking to ensure that the certificates of practice are duly verified, together with the underlying educational degree certificates. Unless this exercise is carried out periodically, there is a danger that the administration of justice would be under a serious cloud - Para 10

Advocates Act 1961 - Bar Council of India Certificate and Place of Practice (Verification) Rules 2015- Having regard to the larger dimensions of this matter and the direct impact which the enrollment of fake degree holders and other persons who are not found to be in possession of the qualifications required for entry into the Bar have on the administration of justice, we accede to the suggestion of the Bar Council of India that a High Powered Committee should be constituted by this Court to monitor the process of verification. In our view, such a High Powered Committee should be chaired by a former Judge of this Court and its members should consist of: (i) two Judges of the High Court; (ii) two senior advocates; and (iii) three members of the Bar Council of India - Para 13

Click Here To Read/Download Judgment