Opinion

In Herr Huld’s Chamber

Corrrupt, unregulated and bloated by hapless stragglers—that’s India’s legal profession

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In Herr Huld’s Chamber
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From the lips of Sampson Brass, the obsequious solicitor in Charles Dickens’s Old Curiousity Shop, fall the following words: “If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers”. Fiction has been rarely kind to the man in black. For centuries, lawyers have been portrayed as heartless, avaricious and egotistical, from Shakespeare’s butcher suggesting their eradication to Kafka’s Herr Huld hastening K to his doom.

The clogged Indian judicial system has lived up to the Jarndyce allegory (Bleak House) by virtue of having a burgeoning population. As a result of over 700 law colleges and an apathetic monitor (Bar Council of India), thousands of poorly tra­ined ‘lawyers’ are unleashed yearly on an unsuspecting public. ‘Taught’ by ill-equipped (in many cases, absent) faculty, a system of rote by guide books gets students through college, to fin­­­­ally receive their first lesson in law when dea­­ling with a hapless client outside a tea-shop. Even the National Law Universities, meant to her­­ald change, have added little by way of practi­cal litigation training outside of strong research skills.

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Over 90 per cent of these graduates adorn the advocate’s garb and start learning on the job, often as an apprentice with a relative or acquaintance. Often, merit is irrelevant and given a certain level of brazenness, he finds himself a sui­table guinea pig. To many, this may come as no surprise, having seen lawyers breach their ethical code daily in soliciting briefs, arguing cases in press conferences and taking contingency fees. While there are advocates who are honest, the gulf between the few successful ones and the mul­titude who struggle to make ends meet is so wide that for many of the latter, the shortest route to survival is a justifiable one. Particularly vile is the elephant in the room: a breed of lawyers who exploit public cynicism of the judiciary to promise judgements for a fee, thereby manipulating a susceptible, stupid, desperate client.

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Given the figures—1.5 million lawyers and over 30 million pending cases—an average of 20 cases per advocate seems reasonable. However, when the common parameters of knowledge, competence, experience and fluency couple with the traditional ones of gender and caste, the typical pyramid appears, leaving a large swathe with no cases. Surprisingly, the one factor that seems flexible, especially in criminal cases which form the bulk of litigation, is the cost. More often than not, litigants are willing to mortgage property and pawn belongings to obtain bail.

The disgruntlement with the system is palpable—distrustful clients, disenchanted lawyers and dismayed judges. There has been no attempt at making legal education meaningful, no evaluation of practising lawyers, no compulsory apprenticeship and no endeavour to make examples of those who breach the code. In addition, many lawyers with political affiliations gain currency through appointments as law officers or as political spokespersons; some even appear as ‘legal experts’ on news panels, thereby making a moc­kery of the ban on lawyer advertisements.

The blame must be shared equally by the Bar Council and the Union ministry of law. While one has abdicated all responsibility, the other has shied away from breaching the gap. Thomas Jefferson’s observation holds true for our Par­li­ament as well: ‘If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?’ In a nation built on the shoulders of lawyers like Gandhi, Patel and Ambedkar, the profession is now on a slippery slope. If no consideration is given to the less fortunate of our tribe, the descent into Dante’s City of Dis is a sure one.

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(Sankaranarayanan is a Supreme Court advocate)

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