50pc of Indias lawyers fake!
Amicus Curious? Weve heard of fake encounters, but fake lawyers? There are lakhs of them, duping clients and even judges with
court craft, black coats and a smattering of legalese. With degrees bought at dubious law colleges, sometimes even without
The Real Degree
Broadly, there are three types of recognised legal education from BCI-endorsed universities.
A composite, five-year double degree course comprising a bachelors degree (arts, science or commerce) as well as an LLB (Legum Baccalaureus in Latin).
Passing a three-year LLB course following any other degree (minimum bachelors)
Bar Council of India-accepted foreign degrees (list on BCI website).
This one could be the shortest legal thriller ever, but with a Jeffrey Archer twist in the tale. In early February this year, a litigant was observing lawyer Ajit Kar with awe as the latter argued a brief in front of a magistrate in Delhis Dwarka court. It didnt take him long to decide that, in Kar, he had found the advocate to replace the one representing his cousin. Bail had been granted to an accused in a criminal case, and they needed a lawyer who could get it cancelled. Right afterwards, he struck a deal with Kar. The alleged scene: a glib Kar said his speciality was criminal cases, and he would charge Rs 1 lakh as feesthe litigant paid up half of that as advance on the spot, the rest was to be furnished when the case was settled.
On February 4, when the litigant went to court for the hearing as scheduled, lawyer Ajit Kar was standing ashen-faced amongst other lawyers and bar association members. The would-be prosecutor had himself turned into an accused. Kars cover had just been blown: he was a fake lawyer.
The police say Kar had had a good run for around seven years and had perhaps appeared in some 60 cases. He had first come to the court in 2010 for a case and realised to his dismay that legal fees were very high. Not much dope exists on the back-story, except that he had a dispute in his own family. Anyway, out of desperation, he argued his own caseand decided he had the knack for it. Realising one could make a good living from it, Kar would wear a black coat and approach litigants to entrust him with power of attorney and charged them as much fees as the others.
Other lawyers practising in Dwarka were in awe of Kar. He could argue like a seasoned senior advocate and knew both the Indian Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code well, says B.S. Jakhar, president, Dwarka Bar Association. During elections, we would ask Kar for votes and junior lawyers used to touch his feet in reverence. Pair chhoote thhe.
In some cases, Jakhar claims, Kar even filed a fake vakalatnamaa kind of power of attorney through which the litigant empowers the advocate to represent him. The advocate has to file the vakalatnama in the court where he appears on behalf of his client. After that formality was taken care of, Jakhar says, there was really nothing to stand in Kars way: his knowledge of the law and arguing skills were mostly decent enough for him to pass off as a lawyer in front of a judge.
And yet, the self-taught always run the risk of not doing things in a schooled wayand can stand out. Another lawyer, who observed irregularities in Kars arguments, became curious and asked where his chambers were. Kars answers were evasive and, his suspicions piqued, the lawyer tipped off bar association members. They had just accosted Kar when the first litigant landed at court. The latter was persuaded to file a complaint and Kar was handed over to the cops. Booked for fraud, he is now in judicial custody. His courtroom skills should come in handy now, since the lawyers in Dwarka have decided not to represent him.
But Kar could almost count as an amateur compared to some other luminaries from his fraternity of fakesand its a sizeable one, numerous enough to make up a whole bar association of Munnabhai LLBs, as Mannan Kumar Mishra, senior advocate and Bar Council of India chairman, calls them.
The Association of Fakes
Such an association could have a formally graded hierarchy too, for Munnabhai LLBs come in many shapes. Some have genuine law degrees, but earned those on the back of fake graduation degrees; some have earned their spurs at institutions that turn into degree malls at exam time, a bazaar run on forged attendance and/or mass cheating; some got degrees from institutions that are themselves dubious; some have outright fake LLBs; some, like Kar, just wear the black coat and go to court.
Back in January, Mishra estimated 55-60 per cent of all enrolled lawyersthats over nine lakh of the countrys total 16.5 lakh enrolled lawyerscould have used fake degrees! There are many more, of course, who blissfully practise even without an enrolmentand the BCI has no estimate for the number of lawyers without degrees. Par for the course, you could say, in a country that has seen fakes posing as bureaucrats, cops, doctors, what have you.
Kars learned peers present fascinating stories. Take Mahendra Kawchale, in Pune. He had great rhetorical skills and seemed to know the law, except he would lean over to ask other lawyers how to file papers in court. A probe revealed that he had started with smaller cons in Solapur and had duped people by promising them government jobs. After running up 21 cheating charges against him, he shifted to Pune and started a law practice, getting an enrolment number in due course, using a graduation degree from Kolhapur and a fake law degree from Lucknow.
Kawchale allegedly charged in lakhs, but became greedy and did not deposit court fees or fines that he collected from clients. By the time of his arrest in 2011, he had filed PILs in Bombay HC and argued several cases for clientsa relative touted for himand even appeared as defence in sensitive cases, including two rape and murder cases and some related to corruption. Reliable sources let on that Kawchale, now out, has got a proper law degree and is trying to re-enrol himself validly but the case against him remains pending.
A few months after Kawchale, Uddhav Kshetrapale was arrested in Pune for posing as a lawyer and charging up to Rs 1.5 lakh as fees for a case. He was arguing a matter before a magistrate before another lawyer pulled him up for not wearing a black coat.
There were three other arrests in Pune alone that same year. One of them was of Anil Kawle. Armed with only a high school qualification, Kawle began as a senior lawyers clerk and so knew every aspect of filing cases and court procedures. He picked up courtroom skills by observing the senior and studied the law on his own. By the time his run ended, Kawle had allegedly appeared in over 400 cases in Punes Debt Recovery Tribunal in a 15-year legal career. So refined and persuasive were his skills that at least three banks, including the State Bank of Indias local branch, had reportedly put him on their panels and briefed him regularly.
Kawles case is pending at a court in Pune. When contacted, he refused to comment citing the sub-judice nature of his case, except to allege that this report was probably motivated by his rivals since it was raking up an old case while there are 17 similar cases pending in Pune. He said he had served legal notices on media houses for defamation. Despite repeated attempts, Outlook could not get in touch with Kawchale or Kshetrapale for a response.
Pseudospotting
The BCI is currently faced with the mammoth task of weeding out fake lawyers, a long overdue task that might ironically eliminate some genuine talentfor one common trait among the fakes is that they seem to have picked up enough skills to obtain favourable orders for their clients! As a first step, the BCIthe statutory body responsible (under the Advocates Act of 1961) for the formal enrolment of lawyersintends to weed out those who ply their craft on the basis of a fake degree.
Since 1961, there have been 16.5 lakh enrolments. The state bar councils do not verify the authenticity of the submitted documents. No state bar council has kept a simple tabulation, since 1961, on how many advocates have died, retired from practice, switched their profession or taken up employment in a corporate body. None of the state bar councils have verified how many lawyers there actually are. Despite several extensions since 2015, only about five lakh applications have come in from lawyers for verification, says Mishra.
The BCI floated fresh rules in 2015 that now require a lawyer to apply for a fresh certificate of practice every five years. But these have not kicked in yetafter petitions and stay orders in several high courts, the Supreme Court took up the clutch of cases and directed high courts not to entertain any petitions in this regard. The apex court later directed bar councils to complete the verification process and will hear the validity of the new rules separately. Those opposing the new Certificate of Practice Rules argue the BCI had added an extra layer of conditions on lawyers without sanction from the Advocates Act.
The BCI has decided to set 1975 as the cut-off yearenrolments after that year have to be verified along with original documents. There is also an exemption for court-designated senior advocates who need only file a single-page affidavit in support of their enrolment. Some state bar councils Outlook contacted are mulling a process to verify degrees with universities at the time of enrolment.
The cost of verification is high. Universities have set charges between Rs 500 to Rs 2,500 per degree. With five lakh degrees, thats at the least a whopping Rs 25-30 crore for the present five lakh applications. All the parties concerned wonder who would foot the bill and the BCI declared it doesnt have the funds. On March 1, 2017, the apex court, when told about the cost involved, directed universities to verify law degrees without a fee. A bench of Justices Pinaki Ghose and Rohinton Nariman also gave them a deadline of four weeks.
Elections to the various bar councils are also central to this issue and have been pending for up to two years in some cases. There is a suspicion amongst many lawyers that these elections are managed using the fraudulently enrolled advocates. The BCI has asked state bar councils to prepare voters list after verification certificates are received. The Supreme Court has been cautiousit has not yet allowed various state bar council elections, some pending for two years or more. A decision is likely to be pronounced soon.
Right now, for instance, the Bar Council of Delhi is managing with a bare committee of three personsadditional solicitor general Maninder Singh, Harsh Sharma and myself, says K.K. Manan, senior advocate and member of the capitals bar council.
Most senior lawyers like Manan agree elections should wait till the verification drive is completed and a fresh electoral list of lawyers is drawn up. Doing it in the present state of affairs will frustrate the whole process. Fraudulently enrolled lawyers could end up voting in people who perpetuate the fraud. We cant put the entire legal profession at stake for a minority, says Mishra.
But Joseph John, Kerala Bar Council chairman, warns the verification process will be too long-drawn-out thing for elections to wait. It will take over 10 years to verify Class 10, Class 12, bachelors and law degrees. Elections cant be held up for that long. In Kerala, some 22,000 advocates have voted and we have received almost the same number of verification forms. I dont think there are many fake degree cases here. No bar council will be able to afford the cost of verifying the degrees, says John.
The Pedigreed Ones
Despite Johns stance, Kerala recently offered an example of distortions of another sort, specifically with Kerala Law Academy (KLA) principal Lakshmi Nair in the eye of a storm. The KLA was started half a century ago as the states first private law college and counts several legal luminaries among its alumniincluding six high court judges, over a dozen judges of the subordinate and higher judiciary, film actors, MPs and MLAs, including at least 17 who have served as ministers in Kerala.
While Lakshmi Nair was pulled up for discrimination and maladministration, she was also charged with manipulating the attendance and marks of some studentsallegations she denied in an interview to Outlook in February. In a preliminary probe, University of Kerala representatives found the attendance of at least four students were jacked up to meet the universitys minimum requirement of 75 per cent.
Many universities around the country have been under the scanner for manipulating attendance records ever since the fake degree racket was busted. Its believed that several colleges fabricate attendance records and allow candidates to merely appear for the final examinations. But none is as prominent as KLA. In a recent case, the BCI is probing the credentials of office-bearers of a lawyers body in a civil court in Patnaprima facie, enrolments seem suspicious.
The regular process to enrol as a lawyer requires original documents proving educational qualifications from Class 10 onwards, attendance certificates, the fees for enrolment and supporting affidavits from two enrolled advocates. And from 2010, enrolment also requires a bar examination, conducted by the BCI through the state bar councils. Finally, the enrolment is cleared by the state bar councils through a formal meeting. For all this grand routine, its striking how the legal professions yen for the letter of the law seems to go missing and lakhs slip past the temple gates. Jitendra Singh Tomar allegedly outwitted none other than the Aam Admi Party with his fake degrees to become a law minister in the Delhi government. The case put a nationwide spotlight on fake degree racketsmore and more legislators from states and the Centre were pulled up for falsifying their educational documents. Tomar had allegedly used both a fake BSc degree from a college in UP and a fake law degree from a Bihar university. The Delhi Bar Council quietly got both his degrees checked while his electoral opponent, Nand Kishore Garg of the BJP, went to court on it. The degrees turned out to be fake.
At first, Tomar claimed a political plot to denigrate his reputation. Later, he supposedly confessed to the police that fake degree agents in Delhi and Munger (Bihar) had helped him obtain the pieces of paper with which he travelled all the way to become a law minister! In December 2016, the Tilka Manjhi University Syndicate in Bhagalpur reportedly recommended cancellation of Tomars law degree. They also called for action against 14 university employees. Delhi Police is yet to submit a charge sheet against Tomar though, despite two years having passed since the controversy began.
So even a political party and a government can be hoodwinked. But state bar councils come up short because, as Mishra points out, verification of documents almost never happened. Anyway, Tomars case put the guard up and many cases have since started tumbling out. In Punjab, we found they even had a tatkal service. If you pay a higher fee, you get enrolled within a few hours of applying! How can degrees be verified within a few hours? asks Mishra. Outlook, India
