Playing religious and caste cards, exhibiting money power and offering liquor generously to woo voters happen not only in general elections but also in elections held for advocate associations and even to the Bar Council, the Madras High Court has lamented.
“Due to such corrupt practices, election process in our country has become a mockery,” observed Justices N. Kirubakaran and R. Pongiappan while ordering that henceforth no office-bearer of an advocate association should be allowed to contest for consecutive terms.
Ending monopoly
In an attempt to prevent monopoly that helps office-bearers to indulge in illegal activities, such as land grabbing and threatening judicial officers to pass favourable orders, the Bench ordered that advocates should contest in association elections only during alternate terms.
Passing elaborate orders on a case related to conduct of elections to the Salem Bar Association, the judges said: “Sadly, our Bar leaders are not properly elected by following a democratic process and without any malpractices. Present members of the so-called ‘noble profession’ are readily selling their votes for money, liquor, foreign tours, etc. This is the practise in almost every election to the Bar association or Bar Council. One Bar association election is the subject matter of this case.”
The judges added: “This court cannot lose sight of the fact that the office-bearers get elected continuously by hook or crook and have monopoly over the associations. The Bar associations cannot, as a matter of right, be controlled by lawyers with criminal or tainted background.
“Office-bearers of Bar associations have to be in touch with judicial officers for smooth functioning of courts and for sorting out problems. If disgruntled elements control Bar associations, it would definitely affect the administration of justice.”
Authoring the verdict, Justice Kirubakaran noted that the court gets many complaints from judicial officers about threat and blackmailing attitude of the office-bearers of Bar associations for judicial orders because disgruntled elements are continuously getting elected.
“Besides, nowadays, numerous Bar associations are formed on communal and political basis. These are all the realities in the lower courts and this court cannot lose sight of the same. Hence, necessarily, this court has to give directions even regarding the functioning of Bar Associations,” Justice Kirubakaran said.
The Division Bench expressed concern over the Bar association leaders who misuse their official positions to attract briefs and conduct kangaroo courts. Many litigants prefer to engage Bar leaders than efficient lawyers because of the presumption that the former could get orders easily.
Sorry state
“Though it is a sorry state of affairs, it is the reality… Sometimes political parties also have their role in getting their party cadres elected as Bar leaders so that they could be used during political protests, agitations and processions,” the judges said.
“This kind of malpractices and wrong methods of elections should be prevented and prohibited; otherwise, the courts/judges will become puppets in the hands of this kind of unruly office-bearers of the associations,” the Bench cautioned.
It further ordered that the Bar association office-bearers should not mention the official positions held by them in the association while filing ‘vakalatnamas’ (an authorisation given by a litigant to a lawyer to appear on his/her behalf) before the courts.
