22,000 lawyers on Kerala’s bar council rolls unaccounted for
There are around 81,000 lawyers on the rolls of Bar Council of Kerala, of whom only 27,000 have certificates of practice that is mandatory of practising law. The certificates of around 25,000 lawyers are pending with various varsities for verification
More than 22,000 lawyers have failed to complete the law degree verification process, leaving them unaccounted for on the rolls of the Bar Council of Kerala (BCK). Currently, there are approximately 81,000 lawyers on the council's rolls. The verification process, which began a few years ago due to complaints of fake lawyers practicing in courts and the need to clean up the voters' list before Bar Council elections, has encountered various obstacles, such as delays in verifying degree certificates from universities and the applications of some lawyers enrolling before 2010 pending with various universities.
Only 27,000 lawyers have been issued Certificates of Practice (CoP), while another 20,000 lawyers have had their certificates forwarded for verification. The remaining 22,000 lawyers' certificates have not been screened, with some possibly being dead, while others may have left active practice or quit the profession. Lawyers who fail to obtain their CoP will be barred from filing petitions for clients in the future.
The Bar Council of Kerala, a statutory body responsible for setting professional conduct standards and legal education, has yet to appoint a committee to oversee the resolution of this issue, with the upcoming council to decide the future course of action.
Written by urgent.news from The Hindu's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
