A petition has been filed today before the Delhi High Court challenging the recent decision of the Bar Council of Delhi (BCD) making Aadhar and Voter Identity Card bearing the address of Delhi-NCR mandatory for enrolment with the BCD.
The petition filed by advocate Rajani Kumari, who is a resident of Bihar and graduated in law from Delhi University, argued that the BCD’s decision is arbitrary and discriminatory.
Justice Prathiba M Singh heard the matter briefly and asked the petitioner to make the Bar Council of India (BCI) a party to the plea.
The case will now be heard on May 2, 2023.
Therefore, the BCD issued a notice on April 13 stating that lawyers proposing to get enrolled with the BCD will have to produce their Aadhaar and Voter ID cards showing Delhi or the NCR as their place of residence.
Further, it added that the fresh law graduates looking to enroll in the national capital will also need to compulsorily attach their Aadhaar and Voter ID card copies bearing an address in Delhi/NCR.
Henceforth, no enrolments will take place without these documents, it stated.
The plea before High Court filed through advocates Lalit Kumar, Shashank Upadhyay, and Mukesh, stated that the BCD’s decision would bar the law graduates who come from far away parts of the country to practice law in Delhi in hopes of better prospects.
The plea contended that “The requirement of an Aadhaar Card and Voter ID Card with the address of Delhi or NCR discriminates against those law graduates who do not have an address in Delhi or NCR.
This creates an arbitrary classification between law graduates based on their residential address, which is a violation of Article 14. It stated that the blanket restriction on enrolment with the BCD lacks intelligible differentia as to how a law graduate belonging to Agra having graduated from National Law School, Bangalore is unequally placed with one domiciled in Meerut. “The impugned notification is completely silent about the objective it seeks to achieve from the classification stipulated therein.”
