SALIENT FEATURES OF THE INDIAN ADVOCATES ACT, 1961

SALIENT FEATURES OF THE INDIAN ADVOCATES ACT, 1961

INTRODUCTION

The Indian Advocates Act, 1961 was brought into force to implement all recommendations made by the All India Bar Committee. This act aims at amending and forming laws related to the legal practitioners and to provide for the establishment of the State Bar Council and the All India Bar Council.

This act made a provision to set up  the Bar Council of India as an autonomous body, which would be given powers to carry out and discharge certain duties and perform certain functions. According to this act, an Advocate is defined as “An advocate who has entered any roll under the Advocate’s Act, 1961”. Earlier, according to the Legal Practitioners Act, lawyers were classified as advocates, lawyers, vakil etc. but this act scrapped these titles off and put everyone under the single title of advocate. They are then also classified as “Senior Advocates” and “other advocates” on their merit.

According to this act, advocates have the right to practice in any court. Although the advocates have the right to practice in any court, there is a provision under this act which provides the courts to allow or deny an advocate to practice in that court. Under article 32 of this act, the advocate whose name is not registered under the Advocates Act, can also practice in any court, but only at the discretion of the court.

There are various provisions under this act which speak about the punishment of an advocate in case of any misconduct. A State Bar Council has the right to punish an advocate for any misconduct done.

SCOPE OF THE INDIAN ADVOCATES ACT, 1961

The Bar Council of India, under this act, can make rules on the matters like the election of other Bar council members or the election of the president and vice president. If there is any dispute regarding the election of any sought or the validity of these elections, the decision of the Bar Council will be final.

SALIENT FEATURES OF THE ACT

The main features of this act are as follows-

1. This act enabled the establishment of the Bar council of India and State Bar Councils.
2. Any advocate cannot enroll himself/ herself in more than one State Council, though he can be transferred from one state council to another.
3. The Bar council was given an autonomous stature.
4. It provided for the provisions for similar roll of Advocates throughout the country.
5. It also provided to combine all the laws of the legal system into one.
6. There were various provisions set up for the Bar Council at state and central level.
7. As stated earlier, the different titles like lawyer, vakil was scrapped off and a single title of Advocate was applied.

Author: Vaishnavi Menon,
MIT WPU School of Law, 1st year