New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday said if judges can go to the National Judicial Academy for training, then lawyers should also undergo compulsory training and they should have a certificate from a recognised Law University before being allowed to practice. A bench comprising justices Bela M Trivedi and Pankaj Mithal made this observation while hearing the bail plea of Souvik Bhattacharya, son of Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLA Manik Bhattacharya. Souvik was arrested in connection with the West Bengal teachers’ recruitment scam.
The bench orally remarked, “Why don’t you have a Law Academy for lawyers? We have one for judges. No action is being taken against erring lawyers by the Bar Council”. “They should be educated properly. There must be compulsory training for every lawyer, including the senior advocates," said the bench.
The bench said, “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”. The apex court pointed out that it is a practice in foreign countries, and “it is not that nobody knows it, the problem is that nobody wants to implement it”.
Senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, representing Bhattacharya, submitted that a bail application was filed by one of the lawyers in the trial court despite the absence of a summoning order. The apex court asked the additional solicitor general (ASG) SV Raju, representing the Enforcement Directorate, to verify if there was any summoning order passed by the court. The apex court has scheduled the matter for hearing after a week.
In December last year, the apex court had sought the ED’s response to a plea filed by Manik Bhattacharya and his son seeking bail in the case lodged over alleged irregularities in teachers’ recruitment in West Bengal. In October 2022, the ED arrested Manik Bhattacharya, a former chairman of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education, for allegedly not cooperating with the investigation. He is an MLA of the ruling TMC from the Palashipara seat in the Nadia district.
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