Institute of Legal and Management Studies

In the Haryana Bar Elections dispute, the Supreme Court today criticised the Punjab and Haryana State Bar Council for not taking a firm stand with regard to the alleged irregularities.

"You never take a firm stand because you need their votes. That is the whole problem. You are a statutory body! You should be very clear that if procedure has not been followed, you should firmly say procedure has not been followed and we would like that elections be held afresh in a transparent manner...if you are satisfied that everything has been minutely followed, there has been faithful compliance with the rule book, you take a stand and we will examine", remarked Justice Surya Kant.

A bench of Justices Kant and Dipankar Datta was dealing with two petitions: one, involving an advocate's challenge to his disqualification from contesting Karnal Bar Association elections, and second, involving issues (such as electoral roll manipulation) pertaining to the Rohtak Bar Association.

In the Karnal Bar matter, it had earlier expressed serious displeasure with the manner of functioning of P&H Bar Council as well as the Karnal Bar Association. It had further asked Senior Advocate RS Cheema to suggest names of senior/respected members of Karnal Bar to whom affairs of the Bar Association could be handed over as an interim measure.

On April 15, while lamenting as to what was happening in the State of Haryana, the Court had called on the counsels present to submit names of persons who could be part of an independent Tribunal (headed by a former judge of the High Court) to conduct the elections. On May 20, the Court specifically asked the Chairman, P&H Bar Council to submit within 2 days a proposal regarding nomination of a former High Court judge to conduct Haryana Bar elections.

Today, Senior Advocate Narender Hooda (for appellant in Karnal Bar matter) informed the Court that the Bar Council was agreeable to conducting afresh the elections of the Karnal Bar, but not in other districts of the state.

When Justice Kant turned to Senior Advocate Rakesh Gupta, Chairman, P&H Bar Council, he gave a brief backdrop of the case and said "we are in your Lordships' hands", while underlining at the same time that there were serious allegations against the appellant related to chamber allotments and construction.

This lack of a clear-cut stance led Justice Kant to remark that the Bar Council never takes a firm stand as it "needs votes". Ultimately, the Karnal Bar matter was sent back to the High Court for fresh adjudication, while the date of hearing in the Rohtak Bar matter was preponed.

"Since the impugned judgment of High Court has been passed adversely impacting the rights of the appellant and at the same time without affording him a reasonable opportunity of being heard, the same is set aside on this ground alone. Matter is remitted to High Court for fresh adjudication after hearing the parties. Owing to the urgency, Chief Justice of High Court is requested to post the matter for hearing on 2 June. We request the High Court to make an endeavor to decide the writ petition on merits at the earliest and issue appropriate directions as may be required", the Court said in the Karnal Bar case.

In the Rohtak bar case, where Senior Advocate Dr Menaka Guruswamy, representing the appellant(s), highlighted that notice was issued in the underlying writ petition without passing any interim directions, the Court ordered that the High Court take up the matter on 2 June and ignore all previous orders passed by the state bar council for deciding on merits. In the meantime, the order revoking license of practice of one of the appellants (who desired to contest the elections) shall be kept in abeyance, it added.

Appearance: Senior Advocates RS Cheema (Amicus Curiae), Narender Hooda, Dr Menaka Guruswamy, Rajive Bhalla, Arvind Sangwan, Santosh Paul, Ritu Bahri and RS Malik; AoRs Shrey Kapoor, Sunny Kadiyan, Varun Punia, Vedant Pradhan, Radhika Gautam, Raghavendra Pratap Singh, Saurabh Agrawal, RC Kaushik, Ajit Sharma and Akshay Saxena; Advocates Nipun Arora, Karan Kapoor and Archana Yadav

Case Title:

(1) SANDEEP CHAUDHRY Versus JAGMAL SINGH JATAIN AND ORS., SLP(C) No. 7868-7869/2025

(2) SANDEEP KUMAR AND ORS. Versus BAR COUNCIL OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AND ORS., SLP(C) No. 10323/2025