The Madras High Court has quashed an order passed by a disciplinary committee of Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry (BCTNP) refusing to permit the legal heirs of a deceased complainant to pursue a complaint lodged against two lawyers for having grabbed their immovable property.
Justices P.N. Prakash and A.A. Nakkiran held that the order passed by the disciplinary committee on March 6, 2021 was contrary to Rule 11 of Chapter I in Part VII of the Bar Council of India (BCI) rules which empowers the committee to continue the inquiry even if the legal heirs do not step in.
They pointed out that the BCI rules categorically states that if a complainant died pending an inquiry before the disciplinary committee and if there was no representative willing to conduct the case on his/her behalf, the committee could either proceed with the inquiry or drop it.
