SC panel to verify advocates’ degrees

NEW DELHI: An eight-member panel appointed by the Supreme Court will supervise the verification process of law degrees of advocates. Led by ex-SC judge Deepak Gupta, the panel assumes significance after the Bar Council of India (BCI) reported that a lawyer with a fake degree had become a judicial officer in Kerala and seven such lawyers had contested and won bar elections.

A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices P S Narasimha and J B Pardiwala entrusted the panel with the task to monitor the verification process. The other members of the panel would be retired HC judges Arun Tandon and Rajendra Menon, senior advocates Rakesh Dwivedi and Maninder Singh, and three members to be nominated by the BCI.
According to BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra, state bar councils have been carrying out verification but it had run into difficulties because of the ‘certificate to practice’ issued to lawyers by state advocate regulatory bodies. The panel has been asked to submit a status report by August 31.