300 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Shri Venkataraman (Madras) : This Bill in so far as it tries to unify the bar of this country is most welcome. Not only after the establishment of the Supreme Court but even earlier, immediately after the establishment of the Federal Court, the lawyers’ conference held in Madras year after year suggested by passing resolutions that the Bar in India should be unified and there should be an All-India Bar Council and the enrolment of and disciplinary jurisdiction over all these Lawyers should be brought under one central control, namely, the All-India Bar Council. Though this bill does not go so far as that, it certainly makes a beginning in that it says that the advocates who are enrolled in the Supreme Court will be entitled to practice in the High Courts notwithstanding the fact that they have not been enrolled in such High Courts themselves. The Minister unfortunately stopped short of the very ideal which he set before himself. He said that it was his intention that the advocate who is enrolled as a member of the Supreme Court Bar should be enabled to go and appear in the province from which the case emanated even though he was not enrolled as an advocate of that court. If you merely substitute for the word “Madras” in the instance which the Hon. Minister gave by the word “Bombay” and then apply all the process step by step, which he took us through, you will find that the object, when he says is embodied in this Bill, is not carried out. I will repeat the instance myself.
Suppose a case emanates from Bombay and if chances that an advocate from Madras is engaged to appear before the Supreme Court on an appeal. It is possible for the Supreme Court to remit the case not only to the appellate side of the High Court but even send it back for a finding to the original side of that court. That advocate who studied and prepared the case and spent a lot of time over it—the client too must have spent a lot of money, as the Minister said, in briefing and instructing that particular advocate—would be prevented from appearing on the original side, just because the exception has been introduced in the Bill. Let me look at the rationale of the exception introduced...
Dr. Ambedkar: There is no iogic in it I confess.