Bar poll over, what next?

THE BIG battle?the annual High Court Bar Association (HCBA) election?is over, leaving behind glory for some and gloom for others. At the same time, the election results have thrown up those who would probably realise that all that they had looked for was akin to building castles in the air.

THE BIG battle—the annual High Court Bar Association (HCBA) election—is over, leaving behind glory for some and gloom for others. At the same time, the election results have thrown up those who would probably realise that all that they had looked for was akin to building castles in the air.

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Among them, notably, has been Sadhna Upadhyaya. Not long back, her dynamism had launched her as a potential Bar leader; it symbolised a welcome emergence of women power in a predominantly male-dominated profession. She won with aplomb, two terms before, the prestigious post of the Bar Association’s general secretary. It had then seemed that she was cut out to ascend in future as the first woman president of the Association. But, sadly, something went wrong somewhere, and her leadership aura began petering out.

Consequently, when she recontested for the post of general secretary last time, she lost out to IK Chaturvedi. However, instead of dipping, her ambitions, ironically, took an upswing. This time she threw her hat in the ring for the post of president, but it, woefully, proved more demoralising. She could poll only 145 votes, finishing last among the four contestants. What a rise then and what a fall now!

Well, the office of president gets no fresh fragrance; it has just been a replay of the old good or bad story. CL Pandey gets yet another term. However, what promises to kick up hopes for some healthy dimensions in the Association’s functioning this year is the thundering victory of Rakesh Pandey for the post of general secretary. His margin of victory over his nearest rival, being about 400 votes, has been phenomenal and highest in this poll. He polled 207 votes more than what went to CL Pandey’s share.

Rakesh seems to be a well-intentioned and positive-spirited young lawyer. “Let the Bar give me an opportunity and I will show what I can do for it,” Rakesh told this columnist two days before the election, when asked how the Association and its election process could be liberated from the blots which had tarnished the dignity of the Bar in the minds of the general public.

Rakesh Pandey will be taking over the office of general secretary with utmost confidence, what with the massive mandate he has been blessed with. One has to wait and see if he is really serious about cleaning up the Bar Association and its election process, so that money power and unethical poll practices no more dissaude good, but financially not potent, lawyers from contesting Bar elections in future.

The first challenge that awaits the new team comes from the UP Bar Council. It has resolved that the Bar Associations all over the state, including the High Court Bar Association, must adopt the model bye-laws framed by the Council, failing which they would lose their affiliation with the Council and all the benefits which flow from it.

Ably drafted by senior advocate and Bar Council member TP Singh, the model bye-laws seek to achieve laudable objectives. One of these restricts the right to vote and membership of a Bar Association of a court to only those advocates who practise in that court. There are many more aspects, about which not much is known to lawyers in general, and in one of these columns, more will be told about these bye-laws.

After all, those belonging to an institution command respect or disrepute outside on the basis of that institution’s own image in public. This applies to lawyers too. So, to begin with, the adoption of the model bye-laws poses the first litmus test for the newly elected team to prove the genuineness of the intention, if any, to restore to the Bar Association its earlier respectability, meaningfulness and dignity.

Enough is enough, one would say, and instead of chasing self-gratifying opportunism, the duo, comprising the two Pandeys—CL Pandey and Rakesh Pandey—would do well to pursue a truly positive role to transform the Association into a model institution that every lawyer could feel proud of. Better to be late than never. Are they listening?