Odisha bar council asks lawyers not practising in courts to surrender their licence

There are allegations that some lawyers are doing jobs in private companies, government entities and also getting engaged in business activities after securing licences to practise law

Bhubaneswar: Odisha State Bar Council has directed lawyers engaged in other professions, including business, and not practising law in courts, to surrender their practising licences within a month.

Lawyers may be a sleeping partner in a firm doing business provided that the nature of the business is not inconsistent with the dignity of the profession, Odisha State Bar Council said. (Representative photo)

“There are allegations that some lawyers are doing jobs in private companies and government entities and also getting engaged in business activities after securing licences to practise law. By doing this, they are violating the norms as prescribed by the Advocates Act, 1961,” the lawyers’ body said in a letter to all district bar associations of Odisha.

Citing sections in the Advocates Act, the council said an advocate is not supposed to personally engage in any business; but he may be a sleeping partner in a firm doing business provided that the nature of the business is not inconsistent with the dignity of the profession.

“An advocate may be director or chairman of the board of directors of a company with or without any ordinarily sitting fee, provided none of his duties are of an executive character. An advocate shall not be a managing director or a secretary of any company. An advocate shall not be a full-time salaried employee of any person, government, firm, corporation or concern, so long as he continues to practise, and shall, on taking up any such employment, intimate the fact to the Bar Council on whose roll his name appears and shall thereupon cease to practise as an advocate so long as he continues in such employment,” the council said in its letter.

The bar council has asked all bar associations in Odisha to take action against the non-practising lawyers if they fail to surrender their licences within a month and initiate criminal proceedings against them.