Professional Ethics

An Assessment of Legal Ethics and Morality of Corporate Lawyers vis-à-vis Competitive Benchmarking

By |2020-08-27T10:04:08+05:30August 27th, 2020|Commercial Litigation, Professional Ethics|

Editor’s Note: In the following post, A. Swetha Meenal & Joysheel Shrivastava* explore the ethics and morality of corporate lawyers. They point out that the metric by which success in the corporate world is evaluated itself causes the line between ambition and morality to disappear. While this reduces lawyers to inherently amoral and apathetic professionals, [...]

Ethics in the Profession: The Spine of a Litigator

By |2020-08-24T11:51:02+05:30August 24th, 2020|Access to Justice, Judicial Ethics, NALSAR Alumni, Professional Ethics, Young Lawyers|

Editor’s Note: Against the backdrop of the Prashant Bhushan contempt case, Talha Abdul Rahman* asserts that lawyers are ambassadors of rule of law and should courageously point out any wrongdoing or arbitrariness in the conduct of those in authority. A career in litigation is fraught with fresh challenges every day. Lawyers are humiliated by judges [...]

Call me by my name: Lords & Justices

By |2020-05-06T21:54:15+05:30May 6th, 2020|Constitution of India, Judicial Administration, Judicial Ethics, Professional Ethics|

Editor's Note: In this essay, Shreenath A. Khemka* critically assesses the honorary title of ‘Justice’ used as a prefix by judges of various High Courts and the Supreme Court of India. He argues that the usage of the title ‘Justice’ is unsustainable under Article 18 (1) of the Constitution. When it comes to the practice [...]

Fifth Judges’ Case: Parliamentary Prerogative Over Removal Proceedings

By |2019-08-17T22:14:02+05:30August 17th, 2019|Constitution of India, Judicial Administration, Judicial Ethics, NALSAR Alumni, Professional Ethics, Supreme Court of India|

Editor's note - In this piece Shreenath Khemka writes about the imminence of a fifth Judges' case. With the CJI recommending the initiation of removal proceedings against Justice S.N. Shukla, the Judiciary's control over its composition can be seen to be extending to the removal of its officers too. While the four Judges' case gave [...]

Black Swans Galore: Disciplining Mechanisms in the Judiciary

By |2019-08-09T20:54:37+05:30August 9th, 2019|Constitution of India, Judicial Administration, Judicial Ethics, Professional Ethics, Supreme Court of India|

Editor's Note: In this post, Shreenath Khemka points out the shortcomings of the currently available disciplining mechanisms to regulate the judiciary. As proposals, he suggests using contempt proceedings, the use of the General Clauses Act for penalties and the writ of 'Scire Facias' instead of the arduous removal proceedings under 124(4) of the Constitution.   The [...]

Towards Truth as the Only Goal (III of III)

By |2019-04-28T16:00:21+05:30April 28th, 2019|Access to Justice, Adjudication and Judicial Process, Article 20, Bar Council of India Rules, Evidence Law, Professional Ethics|

Editor’s Note: In the final part of his series on truth as the normative goal of the judiciary, Justice K. Kannan analyses three systemic hurdles in securing truth – the Fundamental Right against self-incrimination, privileged communications and professional ethics. He ends his three-part series with a noteworthy message to all members of the legal community, [...]

When legislators get to ‘party’ at the Bar

By |2019-04-06T19:25:40+05:30April 6th, 2019|Adjudication and Judicial Process, Bar Council of India Rules, Constitution of India, Legislators, Professional Ethics, Supreme Court of India|

“Legal profession requires full-time attention and would not countenance an advocate riding two horses or more at a time". Justice Majumdar in Haniraj L. Chulani v. Bar Council In September 2018, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court (SC) refused to prevent legislators from practising law during the incumbency of their office. Relying on the lack [...]

Towards Truth as the Only Goal (I of III)

By |2018-09-26T01:14:02+05:30September 26th, 2018|Adjudication and Judicial Process, Criminal Law, Evidence Law, Judicial Ethics, Philosophising Litigation, Professional Ethics, Proving Cases, Tricks of the Trade|

This is the first part of Justice K. Kannan's three-part series 'Towards Truth as the Only Goal'. In a set of three articles, he shall analyse the function of the judicial process of arriving at the normative goal of truth. In this first article, he argues that while essentially all litigations are always exercises to [...]

Expectations of the Bench from Young Advocates

By |2018-09-21T22:34:35+05:30September 18th, 2018|Judicial Ethics, Professional Ethics, Success in Litigation, Supreme Court of India, Tricks of the Trade, Young Lawyers|

In this interesting article, Justice Ruma Pal, a former judge of the Supreme Court of India, offers an insider's perspective on tricks of courtroom lawyering. She takes the readers through the necessary ingredients which make up a ‘legally successful lawyer’ as distinguishable from a ‘successful lawyer’. The didactic article is addressed to young lawyers in a [...]

Guiding the hitherto Unguided: Senior Counsel Designations

By |2018-09-26T00:33:56+05:30December 7th, 2017|Professional Ethics, Senior Designation, Supreme Court of India|

The October of 2017 will be remembered as the one when the ‘sentinel qui vie’ of the Constitution of India delivered considerably on the front of reforming the legal profession: both bar and bench alike. The Supreme Court rose to the occasion and upheld the rule of law within the profession by giving effect to [...]