Bombay Bar Association slams ED summons to senior advocates, warns of legal action
Calling the move 'a direct attack on the legal community as a whole,' the BBA said the incident has 'shocked the collective conscience' of lawyers across India. The Association expressed grave concern over what it views as a misuse of power by the investigative agency, warning that such actions risk setting a dangerous precedent for the intimidation of advocates performing their professional duties.
'Advocates accept any professional assignment on the basis that during the course of such professional work, they would not have to face intimidation or threats of any kind,' the statement read. It added that the rule of law cannot be preserved if advocates feel threatened merely by representing clients.
The Association underlined that the powers of the ED, while statutory, must be exercised within the legal framework of the country, which includes protections enshrined in the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 — particularly provisions safeguarding professional and confidential communication between advocates and their clients.
The BBA also linked the issue to broader constitutional values, noting that any interference with the legal profession undermines fundamental rights, including the right to a fair trial and legal aid under Article 21 of the Constitution. 'Any attack on an Advocate, direct or indirect, has the consequence of destroying these constitutional ideals — a situation which is antithetical to the rule of law in a democratic country like India,' the statement said.
In a pointed remark, the Association said: 'Surely, this is not the Amrit Kaal,which we want to see,' adding that 'lessons in Constitutional law are required to be taught in law colleges only and not to officers of investigative agencies, on a daily basis by the respected Constitutional Courts.'
Pledging full support to any legal professional targeted by overreach from investigative agencies, the Association stated that it will 'leave no stone unturned' in defending the independence and dignity of the legal profession. It also indicated its readiness to initiate legal proceedings before High Courts or the Supreme Court of India, if necessary.
'The right to practice the legal profession is a fundamental right,' the BBA emphasised, 'and we shall not hesitate to take every legal step to preserve and protect it.'
The ED issued summons to the advocates during its probe into the grant of ₹250 crore worth of Employee Stock Option Plans (ESOPs) by Care Health Insurance to former Religare chairperson Rashmi Saluja. Mr. Datar had provided legal opinion on the ESOPs, while Mr. Venugopal was the advocate-on-Record. Following the backlash from legal bodies, the ED withdrew the summons and issued a directive barring such notices to advocates without prior approval from its Director, in line with Section 132 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023.
The June 20, 2025, statement issued by the ED said, 'In view of the fact that Shri Pratap Venugopal is a Senior Advocate in the Hon'ble Supreme Court, the summons issued to him has been withdrawn and same has been communicated to him. In the said communication, it has also been stated that if any documents will be required from him in his capacity as an Independent Director of CHIL, the same will be requested from him to be submitted by email.'
The statement further said that the ED has also issued a Circular for the guidance of the field formations that no summons shall be issued to any advocate in violation of Section 132 of the Bhartiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023. 'Further if any summons needs to be issued under the exceptions carved out in proviso to section 132 of the BSA, 2023, the same shall be issued only with the prior approval of the Director, ED.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
Resignation only option before Justice Varma to avoid removal by Parliament, rules say
As Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla announced a committee to probe charges of corruption against Justice Yashwant Varma , resignation is the only option left for the Allahabad High Court judge to avoid removal by Parliament . The inquiry committee comprises Supreme Court judge Aravind Kumar, Madras High Court Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and senior Karnataka High Court advocate B V Acharya. Finance Value and Valuation Masterclass - Batch 4 By CA Himanshu Jain View Program Artificial Intelligence AI For Business Professionals Batch 2 By Ansh Mehra View Program Finance Value and Valuation Masterclass - Batch 3 By CA Himanshu Jain View Program Artificial Intelligence AI For Business Professionals By Vaibhav Sisinity View Program Finance Value and Valuation Masterclass - Batch 2 By CA Himanshu Jain View Program Finance Value and Valuation Masterclass Batch-1 By CA Himanshu Jain View Program "The committee will submit its report as early as possible. The proposal (for removal of Justice Varma ) will remain pending till the receipt of the report of the inquiry committee," Birla told Lok Sabha on Tuesday. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Brain tumor has left my son feeling miserable; please help! Donate For Health Donate Now Undo Birla said he had received a proposal from 146 Lok Sabha members, including BJP's Ravi Shankar Prasad and Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, seeking removal of Justice Varma on July 21. Officials aware of the procedure to appoint and remove Supreme Court and high court judges pointed out that while defending his case before lawmakers in any of the House, Justice Varma can announce that he is quitting and his verbal statement will be considered as his resignation. Live Events Should he decide to resign, he will get pension and other benefits entitled to a retired high court judge. But if he is removed by Parliament, he will be deprived of pension and other benefits, they noted. According to Article 217 of the Constitution, a high court judge "may, by writing under his hand addressed to the President, resign his office". A judge's resignation does not require any approval. A simple resignation letter is sufficient. A judge may give a prospective date to step down. In such cases, the judge can withdraw the resignation before the date he or she has mentioned as the last day in office. Removal by Parliament is the other way a judge can vacate office. Then Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna had written to the president and the prime minister to remove Justice Varma, mired in the cash discovery row. Justice Khanna's report was based on the findings of a three-judge in-house panel which investigated the case. Justice Khanna had prodded Varma to resign but he had refused, sources had earlier said. According to the Judges (Inquiry) Act of 1968, once a motion to remove a judge is admitted in any of the Houses, the speaker or the chairman, as the case may be, will constitute a three-member committee to investigate the grounds on which the removal (or, in popular term, impeachment) has been sought. The committee consists of the chief justice of India (CJI) or a Supreme Court judge, the chief justice of one of the 25 high courts and a " distinguished jurist". According to the rule, a committee has to be constituted and then the committee has to submit a report and the report will be tabled in the House and discussions will start to impeach. A fire incident at Justice Varma's residence in the national capital in March, when he was a judge at the Delhi High Court , had led to the discovery of several burnt sacks of cash at the outhouse. Though the judge claimed ignorance about the cash, the Supreme Court-appointed committee indicted him after speaking to a number of witnesses and recording his statement. The apex court has since repatriated him to his parent high court, the Allahabad High Court, where he has not been assigned any judicial work. Supreme Court judge V Ramaswami and Calcutta High Court judge Soumitra Sen had earlier faced impeachment proceedings but they resigned. Justice Varma's will be the first ever impeachment proceeding to be taken up in the new Parliament building.
Deccan Herald
an hour ago
- Deccan Herald
Supreme Court to hear plea for restoring statehood of Jammu & Kashmir on August 14
The plea claimed the non-restoration of the status of statehood of Jammu and Kashmir in a time-bound manner violated the idea of federalism which formed a part of the basic structure of the Constitution.
&w=3840&q=100)
First Post
an hour ago
- First Post
‘India, that is Bharat': How the country got its many names
India or Bharat? What should the country be officially known as? This debate is not new. In fact, makers of the Constitution also struggled with the question. As we celebrate the 79th Independence Day, a look at the many terms associated with the nation 'India, that is Bharat, shall be a union of states,' reads Article 1 of the Constitution. India is perhaps one of the few countries that are identified with more than two names. Besides India and Bharat, Hindustan is also used to refer to the nation. There are other ancient monikers by which the country that we know as India today was known. As the country rings its 79th Independence Day on August 15, let's turn the pages of history to see how India got its many names. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD India's ancient names Scholars say Meluha was once associated with the Indian subcontinent. It was mentioned in the texts of ancient Mesopotamia in the third millennium BCE to allude to the Indus Valley Civilisation. India was also known as Jambudvipa or the 'land of the Jamun trees'. This name can be found in many Vedic texts and is used even today in some Southeast Asian countries to describe the Indian subcontinent. Diana L Eck, an eminent Indologist, wrote in her book, India: A Sacred Geography: 'The Chinese traveller Fa-Hien describes a country (India) triangular in shape, broad in the north and narrow in the south, and he goes on to observe that 'people's faces are of the same shape as the country'.' Aryavarta is used in the Manusmriti to refer to the land occupied by the Indo-Aryans. This covers the area between the Himalayas in the north and the Vindhya mountain ranges in the south. Jains believe the country was called earlier Nabhivarsa. 'King Nabhi was the father of Rishabhanatha (the first tirthankara) and grandfather of Bharata,' geographer Anu Kapur wrote in her book, Mapping Place Names of India. Bharat, Hindustan and India: A country with many names Bharat, Bharata, or Bharatvarsha is said to be the earliest names recorded for India. It can be traced back to the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, which has King Bharata, a legendary emperor and the son of Dushyant and Shakuntala. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Bharat was popularised in modern history due to its use in the freedom struggle in slogans like Bharat mata ki jai. According to the Puranas, Bharata lies between the 'sea in the south and the abode of snow in the north'. Bharata is also thought be the mythical founder of the race. Social scientist Catherine Clémentin-Ojha, wrote in her article, 'India, that is Bharat…': One Country, Two Names, that Bharata refers to the'supraregional and subcontinental territory where the Brahmanical system of society prevails'. The name Hindustan is believed to have originated when Persians occupied the Indus valley in the seventh century BCE. Hindu was the Persianised version of the Sanskrit term Sindhu, or the Indus river, which traversed the land. The Persian suffix, 'stan', was added in the first century AD and it became 'Hindustan', as per an Indian Express report. The Greeks knew about Hind from the Persians, but they transliterated it as Indus. When Macedonian ruler Alexander invaded India in the third century BCE, 'India' was used to describe the region beyond the Indus. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Historian Ian J Barrow, in his article From Hindustan to India: Naming change in changing names, wrote that 'in the mid-to-late eighteenth century, Hindustan often referred to the territories of the Mughal emperor, which comprised much of South Asia.' However, the British maps started mentioning India more by the late 18th century, and Hindustan stopped being used to identify the entire South Asia. How independent India was named The debate that comes up now and then about the country's name also arose after India gained freedom from the British in August 1947. The drafting committee set up under the chairmanship of Dr BR Ambedkar to formulate India's Constitution discussed the section 'name and territory of the Union' on September 17, 1949. Hari Vishnu Kamath, a member of the Forward Bloc, argued that the first article should be 'Bharat, or in the English language, India, shall be and such,' replacing the phrase 'India, that is Bharat'. Seth Govind Das, who represented the Central Provinces and Berar, was in favour of: 'Bharat known as India also in foreign countries'. Hargovind Pant, representing the hill districts of the United Provinces, asserted that the people of Northern India 'wanted Bharatvarsha and nothing else'. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD In view of India's linguistic and cultural diversity, the Constituent Assembly decided to use both 'Bharat' and 'India', recognising the significance of the names. 'Often, as I wandered from meeting to meeting, I spoke to my audience of this India of ours, of Hindustan and of Bharata, the old Sanskrit name derived from the mythical founder of the race,' India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, wrote in his 1946 book The Discovery of India. The debate about the country's name still grabs headlines, with some wanting to do away with the term India, seeing it as a reminder of the colonial past. But historians dismiss it. 'The British have got nothing to do with the name India… It is part of our history from the fifth Century BC. The Greeks used it, the Persians used it. India was identified as a country besides the Indus river. It came from there,' historian S Irfan Habib told PTI. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'Many historical sources, Megasthenes (Greek historian) and so many travellers referred to it. So, like Bharat, India is also part of our history,' he added. With inputs from agencies
