Age no bar for enrolling in bar

Chennai, Nov 16 (UNI) Madras High Court today declared void a rule brought by Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puduchcheri prohibiting persons who attained the age of 45 from enrolling as advocates.

A Division Bench comprising Justices P Sathasivam and S Tamilvanan declared void Rule 8 (A) of the Enrollment Rules of Bar Council of Tamil Nadu (BCT).

By a resolution on June 17, BCT framed the rule preventing persons aged 45 and above from enrolling as advocates. The resolution which came into effect from August 2 has been approved by Bar Council of India (BCI).

In its order, the bench said no concrete materials with statistics have been submitted to show that due to inflow of belated entrance, the standard and quality of the profession declined greatly.

BCT's claim that persons after 58 or 60 did not have good knowledge and lacked manners was at best a delusion born of surmises and conjecture. Persons who managed to get fake law degrees and enter the field should be barred definitely. But at the same time, it could not be said there was no machinery to check and penalise such persons. The age factor could never have relevance in maintaining the standard of the profession, the bench added.

On the contention that retired persons after obtaining retirement benefits and pension, also claimed monetary benefits under Advocate Welfare Scheme, the Bench said the BCT could evolve an appropriate scheme. 'We cannot uphold the validity of a provision though it arises out of a rule making power of the authorities with proper jurisdiction. But when it is apparently stained with arbitrariness and inequality and infringes Article 14 of the Constitution, we have no other option except to declare the rule as void and unreasonable.' Regarding the contention that law degrees from other states were not upto expected standards, the bench said it was for the respective state bar councils to identify the University and deny enrollment. When a person was fully qualified to be enrolled and if he was curtailed based on age factor, it could not be defended by stating that the right to practice was a mere statutory right.

The object of the rule was only to curtail a group of persons from entering the profession and to satisfy the other group who stood on the same footing. Merely because of certain strange instances here and there, it could not be said that the whole field was dominated by persons with undesirable character, the bench added.

UNI XR AA SY BD1952