ED crossing all limits: SC on agency summoning lawyers for giving legal advice

The Enforcement Directorate is crossing all limits the Supreme Court said on Monday as it expressed serious concern over the agency summoning advocates for offering legal advice or representing clients during investigations It also called for guidelines on the matterA bench of Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran was hearing a suo motu case to address the implications of such actions on the independence of the legal professionThis comes in the wake of the ED summoning senior lawyers Arvind Datar and Pratap VenugopalEven if it is wrong the communication between a lawyer and the clients is privileged communication How can notices be issued against them There should be some guidelines the CJI said The CJI continued They ED are crossing all limitsWhile responding to submissions that recent ED notices to legal professionals like senior advocate Datar could have a chilling effect on law practice the CJI said Guidelines should be framedAttorney General R Venkataramani and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said the issue was taken up at the highest level and the probe agency had been asked to not issue notices to the lawyers for rendering legal advice Venkataramani early on in the hearing said he had a word with the ED officials and the summons to lawyers were wrongLawyers cannot be summoned for rendering legal opinions Mehta agreed with Venkataramani Mehta however said there were attempts to malign institutions by creating false narrativesSenior advocate and Supreme Court Bar Association president Vikas Singh illustrated on issue with China and Turkey saying India should not be going the way of other countries which cracked down on the independence of the legal professionHe said My lords may set it down once and for all because the European Commission on Human Rights also has something to say In Turkey the entire bar association was disbanded China also has a similar issueAdvocates stressed that summoning lawyers especially for giving legal opinions was setting a dangerous precedentOtherwise it will have a chilling effect on the whole justice delivery system Lawyers will not be able to freely advise my lords a lawyer saidOne lawyer said If this continues it will deter lawyers from offering honest and independent advice Even district court lawyers were facing undue harassment the lawyer addedThe CJI pointed out the court being surprised by reports it came across Mehta on the other hand cautioned against forming opinions based on media narrativesAs far as general observations are concerned sometimes misconstrued depending upon individual cases I am saying this not the ED there is a concerted effort to create a narrative against an institution My lords may find in a few cases where there is oversteppingiquest he saidThe CJI countered We are finding this overstepping by ED in many cases it is not like we are not findingiquest the CJI said We dont watch the news havent seen YouTube interviews Only last week I managed to watch a few moviesWhen Mehta referred to politicians accused in scams attempting to shape public opinion the CJI said We said itiquest dont politicise thisThe moment I heard about Mr Datar I immediately brought it to the notice of the highest executive Mehta saidThe CJI then referred to the cases which he heard during the day against West Bengal chief minister wife of Karnataka CM and BJP MP Tejasvi Surya and asked the lawyers representing political persons state government and the ED not to politicise the courtThe CJI highlighted how the ED had been filing appeals even against wellreasoned orders only for the sake of filing themJustice Chandran in agreement with the CJI said How do you say that these narratives will influence us if we do not see them at all Narratives will go on all over people might be concerned but you cannot say that we have been influenced by itThe CJI said judgements were based on facts without being influenced by so called narrativesThe bench directed parties including the SCBA to file comprehensive notes on the issue and allowed intervention applicationsThe matter would be heard on July 29 Ultimately we are all lawyers the CJI said stressing arguments in the courtroom should not be viewed adversariallyOn June 20 the ED said it had directed its investigating officers not to issue summons to any advocate in money laundering investigations being carried out against their clients An exception to this rule can only be made after approval by the agencys director it addedThe bar bodies urged the CJI to take suo motu cognisance of the matterOn June 25 the top court said allowing police or probe agencies to directly summon lawyers for advising clients would seriously undermine the autonomy of the legal profession and was a direct threat to the independence of justice administrationThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the 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