The Supreme Court, in a judgment on May 14, declared that advocates cannot be sued by their clients under the Consumer Protection Act for deficiency of service.
A Bench of Justices Bela M. Trivedi and Pankaj Mithal, in separate but concurring opinions, differentiated between a commercial enterprise or business with a ‘profession’. The former has a trader-consumer relationship. The latter was a fiduciary relationship between a professional, be it legal or medical, with a client or a patient.
“Professionals could not be called businessmen or traders, nor clients or patients be called ‘consumers’. The terms ‘business’ or ‘trade’ have a commercial aspect and cannot be used interchangeably with the term ‘profession’ which normally would involve some branch of learning or science. Profession as such would require knowledge of an advanced type in a field of learning or science, or learning gained by a prolonged course of specialised study,” Justice Trivedi explained.
