SC initiates suo motu case over probe agencies summoning lawyers for legal advice
The Supreme Court has initiated a suo motu case over the issue of probe agencies and police directly summoning lawyers for advising their clients facing criminal cases.
A three-judge Bench of Chief Justice of India BR Gavai, Justice K Vinod Chandran and Justice NV Anjaria will hear the matter on July 14, when the court reopens after the summer vacation.
The action comes in the backdrop of a controversy over the Enforcement Directorate (ED) summoning senior lawyers Arvind Datar and Pratap Venugopal. They had reportedly offered legal advice to Care Health Insurance Limited on the employee stock ownership plan given to Rashmi Saluja, former chairperson of Religare Enterprises.
Later, the ED directed its officers not to issue summonses to advocates in money laundering probes against their clients without the “approval” of its director.
The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) and the Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association (SCAORA) had called it a “disturbing trend” that struck at the very foundations of the legal profession and urged the CJI to take suo motu cognisance of the matter.
The top court had on June 25 disapproved of probe agencies and police directly summoning lawyers for advising clients, saying it was a “direct threat” to the independence of justice administration, seriously undermining the autonomy of the legal profession.
“Permitting the investigating agencies/police to directly summon defense counsel or advocates who advise parties in a given case would seriously undermine the autonomy of legal profession and would even constitute a direct threat to the independence of the administration of justice,” a Bench of Justice KV Viswanathan and Justice N Kotiswar Singh had said, staying the operation of a notice issued by the police to a Gujarat-based advocate in a case against his client and directed them not to summon him till further orders.
It had also issued notice to the Gujarat government on his challenging an order of the high court refusing to stay the summons.
The top court had said it would examine if an individual having association with a case only as a lawyer advising the party could be directly summoned by the investigating agency/prosecuting agency/police for questioning.
It had also decided to examine if assuming that the investigating agency or prosecuting agency or police have a case that the role of the individual is not merely as a lawyer but something more, even then, the agencies should be directly permitted to summon the lawyer in question or there should be a judicial oversight prescribed for such exceptional cases.
“What is at stake is the efficacy of the administration of justice and the capacity of the lawyers to conscientiously, and more importantly, fearlessly discharge their professional duties,” the Bench had noted.
The Bench had sought assistance of the Attorney General, Solicitor General, Bar Council of India Chairman and presidents of the Supreme Court bar bodies.
Lawyers engaged in legal practice, apart from their fundamental right under Article 19 (1)(g) of the Constitution (right to practise any profession or to carry on any occupation, trade or business), had certain rights and privileges guaranteed being legal professionals and further as a result of statutory provisions, it had noted.
India