| COURT: | Supreme Court |
| CORAM: | Adarsh Kumar Goel J, Uday Umesh Lalit J |
| SECTION(S): | Bar Council of India Rules 1975 |
| GENRE: | Domestic Tax |
| CATCH WORDS: | foreign lawyers |
| COUNSEL: | Arvind Datar, Dushyant Dave, Nakul Dewan, Sajjan Poovayya |
| DATE: | March 13, 2018 (Date of pronouncement) |
| DATE: | March 14, 2018 (Date of publication) |
| AY: | - |
| FILE: | Click here to view full post with file download link |
| CITATION: | |
| Foreign law firms and foreign lawyers cannot practice profession of law in India either in the litigation or in non-litigation side though they can "fly in and fly out" for the purpose of giving legal advice to their clients in India regarding foreign law. The expression “fly in and fly out” will only cover a casual visit not amounting to “practice”. If the Rules of Institutional Arbitration apply or the matter is covered by the provisions of the Arbitration Act, foreign lawyers are not debarred from conducting arbitration proceedings arising out of international commercial arbitration but will be governed by code of conduct applicable to the legal profession in India. B.P.O. Companies providing wide range of customized and integrated services and functions to its customers like word processing, secretarial support, transcription services, proof reading services, travel desk support services, etc. may come within the purview of the Advocates Act, 1961 or the Bar Council of India Rules if in pith and substance the services amount to practice of law | |
We uphold the view of the Bombay High Court and Madras High Court in para 63 (i) of the judgment to the effect that foreign law firms/companies or foreign lawyers cannot practice profession of law in India either in the litigation or in nonlitigation side. We, however, modify the direction of the Madras High Court in Para 63(ii) that there was no bar for the foreign law firms or foreign lawyers to visit India for a temporary period on a “fly in and fly out” basis for the purpose of giving legal advice to their clients in India regarding foreign law or their own system of law and on diverse international legal issues. We hold that the expression “fly in and fly out” will only cover a casual visit not amounting to “practice”. In case of a dispute whether a foreign lawyer was limiting himself to “fly in and fly out” on casual basis for the purpose of giving legal advice to their clients in India regarding foreign law or their own system of law and on diverse international legal issues or whether in substance he was doing practice which is prohibited can be determined by the Bar Council of India. However, the Bar Council of India or Union of India will be at liberty to make appropriate Rules in this regard including extending Code of Ethics being applicable even to such cases
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