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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Lawyers to take on ‘uncle judges’ by Tapas Chakraborty

Lawyers to take on ‘uncle judges’ by Tapas Chakraborty

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published Published on Nov 29, 2010   modified Modified on Nov 29, 2010

Friday’s Supreme Court rap to “uncle judges” who favour lawyers related to them has opened a Pandora’s box, with state-level lawyers’ bodies claiming to be flooded with phone calls from citizens and moving to mount pressure on the courts.

Several state bar councils plan to meet or write to chief justices and the Centre, armed with resolutions urging judges to seek transfer if they have relatives practising law in their courts. Bar councils are statutory bodies of advocates that monitor ethical standards among them.

The Bihar bar council will write to the Chief Justice of India (CJI) about eight judges and 12 advocates against whom complaints have been received, its chairperson, Baleswar P. Sharma, told The Telegraph over the phone.

He said that in Bihar, the “uncle” problem was compounded by caste ties between judges and lawyers. “We tried to pass a resolution against them in the past but the move was thwarted by a lobby of advocates,” Sharma said.

The bar councils of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh too have decided to act.

Madhya Pradesh bar council had earlier this year written to the CJI about half-a-dozen judges and their relatives, said its chief, Vinod Bharadwaj. “We plan to move a fresh petition to the CJI,” he said.

Uttar Pradesh bar council chairperson Arun Kumar Tripathi said an emergency meeting had been called next week to move a resolution.

“We want to work with the court administration to restore the dignity of high courts by stripping some advocates of the undesirable power they wield thanks to their family ties with some Allahabad High Court judges,” Tripathi said. “However, we know that not all the relatives are taking advantage of the uncle judges,” he added.

Bar council sources had yesterday said at least 20 judges of the high court and its Lucknow bench had one or more “cousin lawyers”.

Harishankar Singh, vice-chairperson of the Uttar Pradesh bar council, said a team of members would soon meet the CJI and the Allahabad High Court chief justice and urge them to speed up the transfer of such judges.

On Friday, the Supreme Court bench of Justice Markandey Katju and Justice Gyan Sudha Mishra had spoken of “something rotten” in Allahabad High Court and, without naming anyone, condemned “uncle judges”. Copies of their order have been sent to all high courts.

Singh said that after newspapers carried the apex court’s observations on Saturday morning, many people had called the Uttar Pradesh bar council to complain about their experiences of the “uncle judge” problem.

Senior Allahabad High Court advocate Keshrinath Tripathi — a former Uttar Pradesh Speaker — wrote an article in a Hindi newspaper today urging Justice Katju and Justice Mishra to give the names of the judges and their relative lawyers to the CJI.

Resolutions and petitions against judges sometimes succeed. For instance, a petition sent to the Supreme Court last year had led to the transfer of some Chhattisgarh High Court judges who had relatives practising in their court. The petition was sent by the bar association, a private body of senior lawyers.

No transfers, however, have taken place yet in Rajasthan whose bar council sent the names of seven judges and their relatives to the Union law ministry last September.

Some judges and lawyers have set good examples too, the bar councils concede. Justice Alok Singh of Uttarakhand High Court and Justice Tapan Sen of Jharkhand High Court had sought transfers after their lawyer-relatives became eligible to practise in their high courts.

On the other hand, lawyer-relatives of Justice B.C. Gyan Pal had waited till his retirement before moving in to practise in Uttarakhand High Court. Till then, they restricted themselves to the district courts, said Razia Beig, chairperson of the Uttarakhand Bar Council.

Still, to make sure that advocates steer clear of the “cousin lawyer” syndrome, the bar council has convened a meeting on December 11, she added.


The Telegraph, 29 November, 2010, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1101129/jsp/nation/story_13234375.jsp


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