Patna, Jan. 16: About 80,000 members of the state Bar council would abstain from work on January 20 in support to the Bar Council of India’s opposition to “regulation of legal education sector” through the proposed Higher Education and Research Bill, 2011.

Besides calling the strike, the Bar council has appealed the Centre to withdraw the Legal Practitioners’ Bill, 2011 at the earliest. The council claimed that the statute would not only curtail its powers to take disciplinary action against the lawyers’ misconduct, but would also paralyse the prevailing system of its functioning.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) was unhappy with the way the Union human resource development (HRD) ministry, headed by Kapil Sibal, had brought the new bill, which was approved by the Union cabinet “without any consultation with the members of the council”.

The BCI has also given a nationwide call to protest the proposed bill.

“This is an attempt by the Centre to encroach upon the powers conferred upon the BCI (for almost 50 years) and the state Bar councils under Advocates Act, 1961. We will fight till the end to protect our rights through various modes such. We will stage sit-in protests and will also stage hunger strikes,” said Manan Kumar Mishra, a senior advocate at Patna High Court and the chairman of the steering committee constituted by the council to spearhead the protest programme.

Mishra, who was accompanied by the state’s Bar council chairman, Baleshwar Prasad Sharma, said: “Legal edu-cation is being regulated by the Bar Council of India and state Bar councils. But the Higher Education and Research Bill, 2011 proposes to take away the duties that the functions are entrusted with. The bill proposes to grant all these powers with a National Commission for Higher Education and Research constituting a few academicians.”

He added: “The council condemns the Centre’s attempt to encroach upon the provisions of Advocates Act, 1961, with a view to use the functions and duties of the elected bodies comprising over 15 lakh advocates of the country.”

Mishra further claimed that the statute “gave power to the council to promote legal education and lay down their standards in consultation with the universities imparting such courses.” He argued: “It was the council’s duty to check whether an institute willing to run legal education fulfils the infrastructure facilities and whether it has the required faculty.”

The senior advocate felt that the council would not allow inclusion of advocates or legal education in the ambit of the proposed law at any cost.

State Bar council chairman Baleshwar Prasad Sharma said: “A joint meeting of state Bar councils and the Bar Council of India has been convened on Janaury 23 in New Delhi to chalk out plans on how to take forward the agitation and put pressure on the government to withdraw the provisions concerning the legal fraternity,”