Apex court asks lawyers not to refuse cases

NEW DELHI - The Supreme Court has held that Bar Associations could not pass a resolution directing their members not to take up the cases of the accused it is aggrieved with. The court said that such a step would be against the constitution.

“We declare that all such resolutions of Bar Associations in India are null and void” and “if they (lawyers) want democracy and rule of law to be upheld in this country”, the legal fraternity should reject such resolutions, the apex court bench of Justice Markandey Katju and Justice Gyan Sudha Misra said in their judgment Monday.

Speaking for the bench, Justice Katju said that every person, howsoever “wicked, depraved, vile, degenerate, perverted, loathsome, execrable, vicious or repulsive” he or she may be regarded by the society, has a right to be defended in a court of law.

The judgment, which enumerates the right of an accused and the obligations of lawyers, said any resolution by the Bar Association restraining its members from accepting a case is also against the professional ethics of the legal fraternity.

The court said that such a resolution would also be a disgrace to the legal profession.

In the case it heard, the Coimbatore Bar Association had passed a resolution asking lawyers not to represent policemen who were involved in an attack on them.

The apex court judgment read that every accused, including policemen, has a right to be represented by a lawyer in court and this right could not be denied to him/her.

This right to be represented by lawyers is irrespective of the heinousness of the crime committed by the accused and cannot be denied by any resolution of the Bar Association, the judgment said.