Shashwati Chowdhury
Published on: August 12, 2022 at 20:09 IST
This week, 140 attorneys were restrained from appearing in court after the Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana found them guilty of “possessing forged and fabricated enrolment certificates.”
By coincidence, all of these individuals were practising law and appearing before the courts in the same Punjabi district (Ludhiana). After discovering that they had fake and fraudulent Enrollment Certificates (licences of Advocate) and were practising law using these fake and fictitious licences, the bar body referred to the situation as a scam and a classic case.
The list of these advocates was sent to the Commissioner of Police in Ludhiana by the disciplinary committee of the Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana, which is made up of CM Munjal, chairman, Harish Rai Dhanda, a member, and Vikas Bishnoi, a co-opted member, for immediate action so that culprits may be charged with the said offence.
The bar’s disciplinary committee was essentially handling a complaint made by a Ludhiana-based advocate named David Gill against a Parminder Singh who had been enrolled as an advocate and who was accused of not having a valid licence.
During the hearing, the disciplinary committee formed a three-person internal committee to examine the District Bar Association members’ licences. After comparing the voter lists provided by the Bar Association of Ludhiana and those from the Bar Council’s records, the committee, which comprised of Rajesh Kumar, Rahul Grover, and Pardeep Sharma, presented their report by showing the chart.
A total of 140 Ludhiana advocates were found to be practising on non-existent numbers after records from 2000 to 2021 were examined.