Supreme Court justice Dipak Misra asked the Bar Council of India (BCI) to not “please electoral politics”, in a BCI golden jubilee conference closing speech. Misra was following up BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra’s opening day speech where he had said that “Mahatma Gandhi is reborn in” Gujarat chief minister and prime ministerial hopeful Narendra Modi, reported the Express.

Several lawyers also reportedly told the Express that they were embarrassed with BCI’s closing ceremony announcement that the Gujarat government had provided free access to the venue Mahatma Mandir and had supplied free food for the 7,000 lawyers attending. Lawyers reportedly said that BCI chair Mishra should not have made political remarks in the presence of judges and that the Gujarat government’s “sponsorship” was “uncalled for”.

In his 25-minute speech Justice Misra said: “I am not saying BCI hasn’t done anything. It has done a lot, but whether or not there has been any value addition to the nobility of the profession is uncertain.

“There is no full stop in the working of BCI, but punctuation marks. These are efficiency, responsibility and capacity. They have achieved it, but I can’t, however, say enough is enough.”