Bombay High Court directs advocate Gunratan Sadavarte to file appeal before BCI against suspension of bar license

The Bombay High Court Thursday directed Mumbai lawyer Gunratan Sadavarte to approach the Bar Council of India (BCI) against the decision of disciplinary committee of the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa (BCMG) to suspend his license to practice law for 2 years..A division bench of Justices GS Patel and Neela Gokhale granted liberty to Sadavarte to move the High Court in the event BCI does not take up his appeal or any interim application he files for urgent relief. “We will not pronounce on anything because it will affect your appellate remedy. It will affect your case. We are not dismissing your petition, we will keep it pending. We are allowing you an opportunity. We are not forcing you to file an appeal and IA in appeal seeking stay. If they do not allow urgent hearing, then you can approach this court”, the Court said..The lawyer had initially approached the High Court challenging a notice issued by BCMG asking him to appear on a complaint filed by advocate Sushil Manchekar, former president of the Pimpri Court Bar Association. The complaint alleged that Sadavrte had worn a black coat with band at public events including an agitation by (MSRTC) employees. The High Court had, however, refused to grant a stay on the proceedings before the disciplinary committee on the complaint.After the proceedings were held before the disciplinary committee, it passed an order on March 28 suspending Sadavarte’s license to practice law for 2 years..This was challenged by Sadavarte before the High Court by way of the present petition. Sadavarte sought quashing of the order on the following grounds: That the complaint was adjudicated by a member who Sadavarte claimed was his opponent in the State bar council election;That the committee refused to provide him with the necessary documents which they relied upon while passing the final order. Senior Advocate Darius Khambata and advocate Makarand Bokare challenged the maintainability of the petition. They also showed official records which proved that all necessary documents had been furnished to Sadavarte..The Court refused to go into the merits of the case after noting that there was a statutory appeal provided to the BCI under the Advocates Act. The ‘unconstrained’ appeal to the BCI provides for a full fledged hearing as if in a trial, with a provision to even bring a variation to the order of the State Bar Council, the High Court noted. With these observations, the Court directed Sadavarte to raise his present grounds before the BCI, while keeping his petition pending before the High Court.