Hyderabad: The Supreme Court in several cases has held that Members of Parliament (MPs) and Members of Legislative Assemblies (MLAs) are public servants. A five-judge bench of the apex court in M. Karunanidhi versus Union of India, 1979, categorically stated that MPs and MLAs are public servants.
Similarly, in 1996, the Supreme Court in Dr Haniraj L. Chulani v. Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa, held that a person qualified to be an advocate would not be admitted as one if he or she is in full-time or part-time service or employment.
C. Damodar Reddy, High Court advocate and chairman of the Telangana Pradesh Congress Legal Cell, says that though the Supreme Court held that a person qualified to be an advocate would not be admitted as one if he or she is in full-time or part-time service or employment, there is a provision under the Bar Council Rules for applying for permission for part time practice.
He opined that practising law is not a salaried job as an advocate can only charge piecemeal remuneration under the Advocates Act for the services rendered to litigants based on the nature and value of the case.
He said in view of the nature of legal practice it would not be proper to put a ban on elected representatives practising law. He said the remuneration paid to MPs and MLAs is termed as allowance, not as earnings.
According to Ashwini Upadhyay, BJP member and advocate in the Supreme Court, “MPs and MLAs who are practising lawyers take a fee from the petitioner and get their salary from the respondent, which is the Central or state government.
This is professional misconduct, as they end up enjoying the benefits of both.”
Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Congress MP and Supreme Court lawyer, told the media that “to add or exclude a person from law, when their alternate participation is in something which is not a profession (namely, politics), and has no prescribed legal qualification, is a fallacious and conceptually confused approach.”
It may be worth mentioning here that most MPs who are in the Rajya Sabha, from the Congress and BJP, left off practising for the period when they were in the Cabinet.
