Nithyakalyani Narayanan. V
The Supreme Court ordered State Bar Councils to submit progress reports on their compliance with the rule requiring Bar Councils to compile a list of Senior Advocates for each district who are open to serving as summer internship hosts for law students.
The decision was made on January 16, by a division bench consisting of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta – “Let the State Bar Councils enter appearance and file respective status report(s) stating whether they have implemented and are in compliance with Rule 26 of Schedule III to the Rules of Legal Education, 2008. The said status report will be filed within six weeks from today”.
State Bar Councils are required by Rule 26 to compile a list of recommended Senior Advocates with ten or more years of experience who are ready to accept law interns on court holidays, organised by the district. According to Rule 26, the State Bar Councils must compile a list of recommended Senior Advocates District-wise with at least ten years of experience, who are willing to serve as interns for students during the summer break. The BCI will then make the list of seasoned solicitors ready to mentor interns available to institutions and post it on their website.
During the hearing, the court further stated that, for the benefit of law students, the Bar Council of India (BCI) should make public the names of such senior counsel that the State Bar Councils had created.
Neeraj Salodkar submitted a public interest litigation (PIL) petition, which resulted in the order. Notably, the BCI was reprimanded by the Central Information Commission (CIC) in June 2022 for failing to properly respond to an RTI application he had made under the 2008 Rules seeking access to a list of senior attorneys.
The CIC expressed strong disapproval of the irony that the BCI is blatantly failing to execute Rule 26 of Schedule III of Part IV of the Rules of Legal Education that it framed, making the provision meaningless. The BCI had requested that he move the corresponding State Bar councils.
The BCI was instructed to immediately post and update these lists on its website on a regular basis. Salodkar had petitioned the Supreme Court after the same was not followed. On March 2023, BCI counsel filed a submission stating that just such a list was being prepared.
Advocates Radhika Gautam and Anjul Dwivedi represented the Bar Council of India while petitioner Neeraj Salodkar appeared in-person.
Name of the case: Neeraj Salodkar vs Bar Council of India and Ors.
Bench: Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta.