The Law Ministry has once again set its sights on nepotism in the legal sector, demanding that the Bar Council of India prevent related lawyers and judges from appearing in the same cases.
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The problem is widespread. A report on television station NDTV said that in some parts of the country groups of judges have children practising in each other’s courts. In 2003 the Bar Council of India demanded the transfer of all judges whose relatives practised in the same courts and in 2004, the chief justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, BK Roy, barred up to a dozen judges from hearing cases pleaded by each other’s relatives.
“It was generally believed that A, B, C and D (all judges) constituted a mutual co-operative society, in the sense that each of the four judges… would protect the sons of the three other judges,” Roy noted in a report. The order sparked a protest by judges in Punjab and Roy was transferred.
The latest demand by the Law Ministry follows a complaint by an MP who claimed that 131 out of 490 judges of the various high courts have relatives practising in the same court.
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