The Supreme Court has registered a suo motu case over investigative agencies summoning lawyers who provide legal advice or represent parties in cases.
A bench of CJI B R Gavai, Justices K Vinod Chandran and N V Anjaria will hear the matter on July 14.
This comes close on the heels of ED issuing summons to Senior Advocates Arvind Datar and Pratap Venugopal, which were later withdrawn. The ED summons had drawn criticism.
On June 25, a top court bench, comprising Justices K V Viswanathan and N K Singh, had referred the question of investigative agencies summoning lawyers to the CJI for further action.
The bench had said that “legal profession is an integral component of the process of administration of justice. Counsels who are engaged in their legal practice have certain rights and privileges guaranteed because of the fact that they are legal professionals, and also due to statutory provisions. Permitting investigating agencies/police to directly summon defense counsel/advocates who advise parties in a given case would seriously undermine autonomy of legal profession and would even constitute a direct threat to independence of administration of justice”.
“What is at stake is the efficacy of the administration of justice and the capacity of the lawyers to conscientiously, and more importantly, fearlessly discharge their professional duties. Since it is a matter directly impinging on the administration of justice, to subject a professional to the beck and call of the investigating agency/prosecuting agency/police where he is a counsel in the matter prima facie appears to be untenable,” the court had said.
