New Delhi: The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that mandatory training for all advocates should be implemented, and that attorneys should not be permitted to practice without a degree from an accredited law school. The court further stated that if judges can attend the National Judicial Academy for training, then why can’t lawyers?
A bench of Justices Bela M. Trivedi and Pankaj Mithal made the statement while considering Souvik Bhattacharya’s bail request. Bhattacharya is the son of Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLA Manik Bhattacharya and was detained in relation to the West Bengal teachers’ recruitment “scam.”
Senior advocate Sidharth Luthra appeared in court on behalf of Bhattacharya and stated that, in spite of the lack of a summoning order, one of the trial court’s attorneys had filed a bail application.
“Why don’t you have a law academy for lawyers? We have for judges. No action is being taken against erring lawyers by the Bar Council. They should be educated properly. Do something. There must be compulsory training for every lawyer, including the senior advocates.
“If judges can go to the National Judicial Academy, why not lawyers? Unless they have a certificate from a recognised law university, they should not be allowed to practise. It is there in foreign countries. It is not that nobody knows it, the problem is that nobody wants to implement it,” the bench observed orally.
The Supreme Court directed Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, appearing in the matter on behalf of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), to verify if there was any summoning order passed by the court and posted the matter for hearing after a week.
The Supreme Court had, on December 21 last year, sought the ED’s response on a plea filed by jailed TMC MLA Manik Bhattacharya and his son seeking bail in the case lodged over alleged irregularities in teachers’ recruitment in West Bengal.
The ED arrested Manik Bhattacharya on October 11, 2022 after night-long questioning. Bhattacharya, a former chairman of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education, was arrested for allegedly not cooperating with the investigation.
He is an MLA of the ruling TMC from the Palashipara seat in Nadia district.
Bhattacharya’s appeal against his arrest by the ED over purported irregularities in West Bengal’s primary school teacher recruitment process was previously denied by the Supreme Court, which noted that the federal agency’s action was lawful.
While the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is investigating the purported irregularities in the recruitment process, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) is following the money trail in the purported scam.
It is purported that some individuals who performed poorly on recruitment exams were paid to be hired as teachers, while qualified applicants went unnoticed.
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