The Supreme Court on Tuesday reserved its verdict in the suo motu case initiated by it to consider the issue of investigating agencies summoning lawyers who provide legal advice or represent accused persons in criminal cases.
A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) BR Gavai and Justices K Vinod Chandran and NV Anjaria proceeded to reserve its order after briefly hearing the Solicitor General and other lawyers.
"Lawyers need to be protected. Provisions are already there. But if they are party to commission of crime," Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta said.
"Of course, we have also stated that no such protection then," the Bench agreed.
"Your lordships are custodian of the entire legal profession," the SG said.
"We are custodian of the entire nation," the Court responded.
"It is about access to justice. Yesterday an FIR was registered against a lawyer since the client says we did not authorise the lawyer. It is a notarized one.. can such issues happen," Senior Advocate Sidharth Luthra asked.
The suo motu case was initiated by the top court after media reports emerged regarding summons issued to Senior Advocates Arvind Datar and Pratap Venugopal by ED.
The summons were issued in connection with ED's investigation into the grant of over 22.7 million Employee Stock Option Plans (ESOPs), valued at more than ₹250 crore, by Care Health Insurance to former Religare Enterprises chairperson Rashmi Saluja.
Datar had provided a legal opinion in support of the ESOP issuance, while Venugopal was the advocate-on-record in the matter.
The ED subsequently withdrew the summons to both advocates following criticism from bar associations across the country.
In the wake of the backlash, the agency also issued a circular directing its field officers not to summon advocates in violation of Section 132. It further clarified that any summons falling within statutory exceptions must now receive prior approval from the ED Director.
However, the Court decided to take up the issue.
During the previous hearing, Attorney General R Venkataramani informed the Court that he had immediately told the ED that its action in the matter was wrong.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta supported the Attorney General’s position and stated that lawyers cannot be summoned for providing professional advice.
However, he also added that general observations made in court are sometimes misconstrued in the context of individual cases and that there was a concerted effort to create narratives against institutions and agencies.
The bench noted that it had observed multiple instances of the ED pursuing politically sensitive matters.
It hinted that it may have to frame guidelines on such issues, pointing out that in several cases, even after reasoned orders of High Courts, the ED continued to file appeals.
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