The Supreme Court bench of Justices RK Agrawal and AM Sapre on Wednesday (August 23) ordered that the Bar Council of Delhi will have to hold its elections after December 31. It also ordered that before elections, a verification committee will have to be formed, comprising advocates, to verify the certificates of lawyers.

A plea filed by advocate Anaywinder Sangwan had sought directions to hold elections to the Delhi Bar Council within four months, alleging that the term of the council had expired in December 2014.

Eventually, other state bar councils had also come forward and filed certain miscellaneous applications such as elections to state bar councils, revision of rolls for bestowing voting rights, verification of university documents for state bar enrolment and modus of AIBE. Moreover, the Bar Council of India, represented by the then senior advocate KK Venugopal (now Solicitor General of India) had sought the following directions:

1. Universities to be directed to complete verification of documents within 30-45 days and inform the bar councils accordingly.
2. State bar councils to be directed to prepare the voter list in accordance with details received from various universities within 30-45 days from the date of such receipt.
3. State bar councils to be directed to hold elections as per verification rules, 2015, within 75 days, as stipulated under Rule 23 of the Verification Rules, 2015.

—India Legal Bureau