Chennai: Madras High Court on Thursday ordered the Tamil Nadu Bar Council and the advocate-general to cancel the membership of over 700 lawyers with law degrees based on MA qualifications from open universities.

The order came after Vijay Narayan, the advocate-general, said persons "who have not even passed sixth, seventh and tenth standards" were able to procure open university MA degrees. "Subsequently, the (MA) degrees have been used to get admissions into law colleges and obtain law degrees. Based on the same, they started enrolling (in the bar)," the AG, the ex-officio chairman of the bar council, said.

Justice N. Kirubakaran termed the disclosures "very shocking". "It is evident that the very process of enrolment (as lawyers) is a faulty one. Moreover, the process of acquiring a law degree is very easy by irregular and illegal means viz., purchasing degrees for money from letter pad colleges from other states."

Other than revocation of 713 lawyers' memberships, the judge ordered police complaints against 42 who had enrolled in the Bar without furnishing proper documents, some even without their addresses, between 2009 and 2016.

Advocate-general Narayan said notices were sent to the 42 but only two replied and one was even found to have enrolled twice. Some of them were engaged "like rowdy elements" in disputes and were taking over possession of properties.

"It is very shocking that without even any formal education, people with criminal backgrounds are able to get law degrees in absentia and enrol as advocates. Due to these kinds of unruly elements, problems are created in police stations...in courts...wherever they go," the judge observed.

Narayan and senior counsels for the Bar Council of India drew the court's attention to such lawyers during the hearing of a dispute over the transfer of some MBSS students of a private medical college in which advocates have been engaged to resolve the problem.

Earlier, on October 12, Justice Kirubakaran had taken a stern view of some of the advocates holding "Kangaroo courts" to settle disputes and had ordered criminal action. He had also directed the Centre to take appropriate steps to streamline the legal profession and told the Bar council to adopt tighter norms for admission to law colleges and approval to new institutions. PTI