Judicial reforms: Tamil Nadu judge started it all

Chennai: It will not be a boastful claim to say it was a Judge from the Madras high court who triggered the present clamour for disciplining the lawyer community that has now climaxed in the Law Commission recommending stern action against striking lawyers.

Justice N. Kirubakaran in his landmark judgment delivered on October 6, 2015 had dared to tackle the most potent impediment to clean justice delivery system by giving directions to the Union government and the Bar Council of India (BCI) to ensure that criminal elements did not get enrolled as lawyers. At one stroke, 689 advocates lost their licences overnight. And the directive paved the way for the Bar Council to strengthen its norms and prevent persons with criminal background from entering the legal profession.

In that order of 2015 in S.M. Anantha Murugan's case, Justice Kirubakaran had asked the Union government to revisit the Advocates Act, including section 24A that deals with ‘disqualification for enrolment’ and gave direction to the bar council to verify the antecedents of all the law graduates and ensure that none with pending criminal cases got enrolled to practice. He also wanted the BCI to keep out the ‘graduates’ of bogus law colleges that mushroomed in the neighbouring states.

“Neither legal profession is an asylum for criminals, nor law degrees are shields for their criminal activities”, the judge had thundered in that judgment.

“Legal profession is blighted by the entry of criminal elements. It is seen from a number of cases coming up before this court and also from media reports that persons with criminal background getting law degrees claiming to be advocates are indulging in criminal activities including conducting “Kangaroo Courts”, degrading and damaging the image of noble profession and for which we have to hang our heads down in shame”, Justice Kirubakaran had said.

He said: “It is said that many persons claiming as leaders of the Bar are safeguarding and aiding those elements. The sorry state of affairs is not only due to a few members of the Bar, but also, because of entry of criminal elements into the profession by taking advantage of loop holes in 50 year old The Advocates’ Act, 1961 and The Bar Council of India Rules regarding admission to law colleges and lack of effective fool proof procedure for enrolling law graduates as advocates”. Such criminal elements disrupted court proceedings by resorting to boycotts and unruly behavior while hiding behind the advocate's robes, the judge had said.

Obviously, the present Law Commission report has found much of its inspiration from Justice Kirubakaran’s order of angst. The humane judge has given several other judgments of societal significance, such as the order making the wearing of helmets compulsory (sadly, the police are not implementing), prohibiting ‘Guru Poojas’ that caused caste clashes down south and setting deadline for conduct of local body elections in the state.