The Supreme Court directed the Bar Council of India to establish a National Legal Academy for the continuous professional training of advocates. It also ordered regular performance audits to assess how the BCI performs its disciplinary functions and responsibilities.
The Supreme Court instructed the Bar Council of India (BCI) to establish a National Legal Academy to strengthen ongoing professional training for advocates.
Alongside this, the Court directed that performance audits be conducted to evaluate how the BCI carries out its disciplinary functions.
These directions came in connection with a dispute involving an advocate who was removed from a bank panel and later placed on a caution list. In a major development for India’s legal system, the Supreme Court has ordered the BCI to set up a National Legal Academy, to be structured along the lines of the National Judicial Academy, which currently trains judges.
The Bench comprising Justice P.S. Narasimha and Justice Alok Aradhe stressed that the academy should promote continuous professional growth for lawyers nationwide.
The Court’s order is not limited to creating a training institution. It also requires the BCI to carry out regular performance audits concerning its disciplinary powers, with the aim of ensuring the regulatory body remains effective in monitoring the conduct of legal practitioners.
By combining institutionalized training with audit-based accountability, the Court seeks to build a clearer, more structured framework for maintaining professional ethics within the legal profession.
The Supreme Court delivered these instructions while hearing a case in which an advocate had been added to a public caution lis maintained by the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA).
The advocate had been removed from the panel of Canara Bank after the bank relied on a legal opinion it considered to be incorrect.
The Supreme Court held that it is not legally sustainable to include a lawyer on a public caution list merely on the basis of allegations of professional negligence. The Court acknowledged that banks and financial institutions may remove advocates from their panels, but clarified that such decisions should not be accompanied by public branding or blacklisting.
The Bench further noted that questions of professional conduct or possible misconduct fall within the domain of regulatory authorities such as the BCI.
This clarification is expected to provide legal certainty on how financial institutions may manage their relationships with external legal professionals while ensuring that issues of ethics and alleged misconduct are handled through the proper regulatory process.
Investors and legal professionals should monitor the BCI’s response, especially the timeline for setting up the National Legal Academy and the scope and details of the performance audits.
These steps could lead to a more uniform and standardized approach to how legal services are managed and regulated across the banking and corporate sectors.