The Maharashtra & Goa bar council has rejected 65,000 persons who had been advocates enrolled on its state rolls, with 17 days to go before closing its voter list in the run-up to long-overdue state bar council (SBC) elections.

According to the Times of India Bar Council of India (BCI) chairman Manan Kumar Mishra told Supreme Court Justice JS Khehar last week at a party organised for the new Chief Justice of India (CJI):

There are now “about 20 lakh” lawyers in India, according to Bar Council of India chairman Manan Kumar Mishra. The BCI’s data on lawyers’ verification has revealed that Delhi has the maximum number of “fake” lawyers.

There are now “about 20 lakh” lawyers in India, according to Bar Council of India chairman Manan Kumar Mishra. The BCI’s data on lawyers’ verification has revealed that Delhi has the maximum number of “fake” lawyers.

Two weeks after Bar Council of India (BCI) chairman Manan Kumar Mishra had said at an event that 30 per cent of lawyers were “fake”, held “fraudulent degrees” or were “non-practising” but still on the rolls, the government’s Press Information Bureau (PIB) reported yesterday that the BCI told the government that “the number of fake lawyers cannot be exactly ascertained by now”.

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*Kian Ganz looks into the BCI’s latest claim that 30 per cent of lawyers are not really lawyers and asks, how the BCI knows.

Legal services in India grew by an average of 8.2 per cent each year between 2005 and 2012, according to the 2012-13 economic survey that was prepared by the finance ministry. It also noted that “liaison offices” by foreign law firms were permitted under Indian law and recommended “exploring” greater access for foreign law firms, which would “improve the competitiveness of the Indian market”.

In 2011 there were 1.3 million lawyers in India, revealed a right to information (RTI) response by the Bar Council of India (BCI) to Delhi-based advocate Kush Kalra, with an average annual growth rate between 2007 and 2011 of around 4 per cent.