R.K. Anand at a golf course. A file picture

Ranchi, May 31: While the country is agog with the sting operation on R.K. Anand, Jharkhand State Bar Council is grappling with not one but at least 75 cases of professional misconduct by lawyers.

The cases range from lawyers demanding money from clients on the pretext of bribing the judges to lawyers demanding and receiving money from both the parties.

In some cases, they are accused of taking money from clients but failed to file petitions, after being “bought over” by the opposite party.

P.C. Tripathy, who heads one of the disciplinary committees of the state Bar council, concedes that some of the lawyers face criminal charges and some have been convicted.

The council, he admits, has come across cases of lawyers implicating their own clients in false cases to extract money. A few have also been caught faking signature of senior lawyers.

The sting operation on Anand caused a flutter in the state today because of the senior Supreme Court lawyer’s close links to the state. He has not only been a Rajya Sabha member from Jharkhand, Anand also continues to head the Jharkhand Olympic Association and is one of the key persons involved in hosting the National Games in the state.

As a senior Congress leader till recently, Anand has also been in the thick of state’s politics and “negotiated” the installation of the UPA government in the state.

The sting operation has exposed professional misconduct of lawyers as well as the practice of winning over prosecution witnesses by the defence.

“Anand has just been caught on tape. It is nothing new,” said former advocate-general Anil Kumar Sinha. According to Sinha’s assessment, public prosecutors are bought off in 80 per cent of criminal cases, certainly in most of the crucial ones.

In Jharkhand High Court too, he said, the assistant public prosecutors (APPs) often fail to oppose bail applications, he pointed out.

Tacitly admitting that the APPs do it for money, the former advocate general said that APPs are paid very poorly, at the rate of just Rs 200 per day. In other words, they make Rs 5,000 or so in a month. This is what prompts them to become dishonest in their dealings and cheat on the government and the police, he felt.

State Bar Council president V.P. Pandey admitted it to be an open secret. But he hastened to add that a few bad apples should not give the entire fraternity a bad name. “I was a public prosecutor for the vigilance department for 14 years but nobody can raise a finger against me,” he claimed.

Lawyers are also not surprised at the collusion of the prosecution with the defence. They recalled the occasion when railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav surrendered in a fodder-scam case here. His counsel had promptly cited a “frivolous reason” for allowing him to return to Patna.

The amused judge had turned to the public prosecutor (PP) to ask if he had any objection. Predictably, he had none. The judge publicly inquired if the PP realised the implication. But the PP had merely grinned and looked away.