T HE Supreme Court on August 12 reserved its verdict in the suo motu case initiated by it to consider the issue of investigating agencies summoning lawyers who provide legal advice or represent accused persons in criminal cases, reported Bar and Bench. A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) BR Gavai and Justices K Vinod Chandran and NV Anjaria proceeded to reserve its order after briefly hearing the Solicitor General and other lawyers.
“Lawyers need to be protected. Provisions are already there. But if they are party to commission of crime,” Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta said. “Of course, we have also stated that no such protection then,” the Bench agreed.
The suo motu case was initiated by the top court after media reports emerged regarding summons issued to Senior Advocates Arvind Datar and Pratap Venugopal by ED. The summons were issued in connection with ED’s investigation into the grant of over 22.7 million Employee Stock Option Plans (ESOPs), valued at more than ₹250 crore, by Care Health Insurance to former Religare Enterprises chairperson Rashmi Saluja. Datar had provided a legal opinion in support of the ESOP issuance, while Venugopal was the advocate-on-record in the matter. The ED subsequently withdrew the summons to both advocates following criticism from bar associations across the country.
