NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court was on Monday informed that the Bar Council Of Delhi has withdrawn its earlier decision requiring a law graduate to be a local resident of the capital for registering with it.
A bench headed by Delhi High Court Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma, while hearing a challenge to the exclusion decision, took on record the statement made by the counsel for the Bar Council and asked him to ensure that the update is published on the website.
"The Counsel for the Bar Council in open court has made a statement that the notification dated April 13, 2023, has been withdrawn. Bar Council Of Delhi has directed to notify the subsequent notification by which earlier notification sands withdrew within four weeks,” the bench, also comprising Justice Sanjeev Narula said.
The court was hearing two petitions challenging the notification of the Bar Council of Delhi excluding those without Delhi/ NCR addresses on their Voter ID card or Aadhaar from registering themselves with the bar body.
The Bar Council had on April 13 issued a notification stating no enrolment shall be done if the applicant law graduate does not provide a copy of an Aadhaar Card and Voter ID Card bearing the address of New Delhi or the National Capital Region.
Petitioner Rajani Kumari, who completed her LLB from the University of Delhi and has a residence in Bihar, earlier argued that the decision of the Bar Council was arbitrary, discriminatory, and against the Advocates Act.
In the petition filed through lawyers Lalit Kumar, Shashank Upadhyay, and Mukesh, the petitioner said that law graduates from far away parts of the country come to the national capital region with the 'hopes of better prospects and a wider horizon of serving the country' and thus seek enrolment with the Bar Council in order to practice law.
The requirement imposes an 'unreasonable restriction' on the exercise of the rights of the petitioner and other law graduates from other states and forces an applicant to change their political constituency and give up their voting rights in their original place of domicile by changing his/her address on the voter ID card, the petition said.
