New Delhi, June 20: The Bar Council of India has revealed that as many as 30 per cent, or six lakh out of the 20 lakh lawyers registered in the country hold fake degrees. It is verifying the degrees of lawyers following the Supreme Court orders. The process will continue till June 30.
As per the BCI’s data, there are 55,000 registered lawyers in Delhi at present. Of these, more than 20,000 are those who have valid licence but they aren’t actively practising. Last year, BCI had made it mandatory for every lawyer to renew their licences every five years.
BCI in its Certification of Practice 2015 had asked all State Bar Councils to implement the verification process for the lawyers at the earliest. Under the new law, every advocate needs to submit all his original degrees with the Bar Council where he is registered with.
After the verification process is over, BCI is contemplating to establish a mechanism of giving Unique Identification Numbers to all the lawyers so that as soon as any lawyer files his Vakaltnama before the court, the system can identify his details and verify his credentials.
Implementation of BCI Certificate and Place of Practice (Verification) Rules 2015 means it is mandatory for all lawyers to re-register in a new format where they have to submit all their certificates starting Class X board results.
