NEW DELHI, July 20:  The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on July 21 a suo motu case over the issue of probe agencies summoning advocates who offer legal opinions or represent parties during the investigation of cases.

  The matter is slated to come up for hearing before a bench comprising Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justices K Vinod Chandran and N V Anjaria.

The case comes in the wake of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) summoning senior lawyers Arvind Datar and Pratap Venugopal.

However, on June 20, the ED said it has directed its investigating officers not to issue summons to any advocate in money laundering investigations being carried out against their clients, adding that an exception to this rule can only be made after “approval” by the agency’s director.

The statement from the federal probe agency came in the wake of the lawyer-client privilege-linked controversy that erupted after the ED issued summons to the two advocates for giving legal advice to Care Health Insurance Limited on the employee stock ownership plan given to Rashmi Saluja, former chairperson of Religare Enterprises.

The ED, tasked with combating money laundering crimes, issued a circular for guidance of its field formations, stating that “no summons” should be issued to any advocate in violation of Section 132 of the Bhartiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA), 2023.

“Further, if any summons needs to be issued under the exceptions carved out in proviso to Section 132 of the BSA, 2023, the same shall be issued only with the prior approval of the director, ED,” the agency said.

The summons issued to these advocates was condemned by the Supreme Court Bar Association and the Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association, calling it a “disturbing trend” that struck at the very foundations of the legal profession.

The bar bodies had urged the Chief Justice of India to take suo motu cognisance of the matter.

On June 25, an apex court bench of justices K V Viswanathan and N Kotiswar Singh had said that allowing police or probe agencies to directly summon lawyers for advising clients would seriously undermine the autonomy of the legal profession and was a “direct threat” to the independence of justice administration.

It had observed that the legal profession was an integral component of the process of administration of justice.

The bench had framed a couple of questions on the matter.

“…when an individual has an association with a case only as a lawyer advising the party, could the investigating agency/prosecuting agency/police directly summon the lawyer for questioning?” the bench asked.

Another question read, “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, should they be directly permitted to summon or should a judicial oversight be prescribed for those exceptional criteria?”

The order came when the top court was hearing a plea of a Gujarat-based advocate, challenging an order of the high court passed on June 12.

The high court in March 2025 refused to quash a notice summoning the lawyer before the police in a case against his client.

The top court, however, directed the state not to summon him till further orders and stayed the operation of the police’s notice issued to him.

The bench asked the apex court registry to place the case files before the CJI for passing appropriate directions.  (PTI)