The Bar Association of Coimbatore passed a resolution that no member of the Coimbatore Bar will defend the accused policemen in the criminal case against them. While dealing the case the court observed that\u00a0 several Bar Association all over India, whether High Court Bar Associations or District Court Bar Associations have passed resolutions that they will not defend a particular person or persons in a particular criminal case.\u00a0\u00a0 Sometimes there are clashes between policemen and lawyers, and the Bar Association passes a resolution that no one will defend the policemen in the criminal case in court. Similarly, sometimes the Bar Association passes a resolution that they will not defend a person who is alleged to be a terrorist or a person accused of a brutal or heinous crime or involved in a rape case. Such resolutions are wholly illegal, against all traditions of the bar, and against professional ethics.\u00a0\u00a0 Every person, however, wicked, depraved, vile, degenerate, perverted, loathsome, execrable, vicious or repulsive he may be regarded by society has a right to be defended in a court of law and correspondingly it is the duty of the lawyer to defend him.\u00a0 When the great revolutionary writer Thomas Paine was jailed and tried for treason in England in 1792 for writing his famous pamphlet\u00a0 `The Rights of Man’ in defence of the French Revolution the great advocate Thomas Erskine (1750-1823) was briefed to defend him. Erskine was at that time the Attorney General for the Prince of Wales and he was warned that if he accepts the brief, he would be dismissed from office. Undeterred, Erskine accepted the brief and was dismissed from office.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Court observed that disturbing news was coming from several parts of the country where bar associations were refusing to defend certain accused persons.<\/p>\n
Chapter II of the Rules framed by the Bar Council of India states about `Standards of Professional Conduct and Etiquette’, as follows :<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 “An advocate is bound to accept any brief in the<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Courts or Tribunals or before any other authorities in or<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0before which he proposes to practice at a fee consistent<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 with his standing at the Bar and the nature of the case.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Special circumstances may justify his refusal to accept a<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 particular brief”.<\/p>\n
Professional ethics requires that a lawyer cannot refuse a brief, provided a client is willing to pay his fee, and the lawyer is not otherwise engaged.\u00a0\u00a0 Hence, the action of any Bar Association in\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 passing such a resolution that none of its members will appear for a particular accused, whether on the ground that he is a policeman or on the ground that he is a suspected terrorist, rapist, mass murderer, etc. is against all norms of the Constitution, the Statute and professional ethics.\u00a0 It is against the great traditions of the Bar which has always stood up for defending persons accused for a crime. Such a resolution is, in fact, a disgrace to the legal community. The court declare that all such resolutions of Bar Associations in India were null and void and the right minded lawyers should ignore and defy such resolutions if they want democracy and rule of law to be upheld in this country. It was the duty of a lawyer to defend no matter what the consequences, and a lawyer who refuses to do so is not following the message of the Gita.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Advocates Act 1961 <\/p>\n
S.7 : Standards of professional conduct and etiquette for advocates – Professional Ethics \u2013It was the duty of a lawyer to defend no matter what the consequences, and a lawyer who refuses to do so is not following the message of the Gita. Constitution of India , 1949, Art . 22(1), 142 ] <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allied-laws"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9S2Rw-32X","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11715"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11716,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11715\/revisions\/11716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}