Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court: In a writ petition challenging the order passed by Respondent 1 which cancelled the petitioner’s provisional licence to practice law and denied the grant of an Absolute Licence on the ground that he had joined as a Prosecuting Officer, the Division Bench of Javed Iqbal Wani and Moksha Khajuria Kazmi*, JJ., quashed the impugned order. The Court directed that the petitioner should be deemed to have been enrolled as an advocate from the date of his initial enrolment until the date of his appointment to the said service.
Background:
The petitioner submitted that he was enrolled as an Advocate in terms of notification dated 10-01-2020, after qualifying an integrated course of law from the Central University of Kashmir. The provisional licence which was issued on 31-12-2019 was renewed yearly. Thus, he was on the rolls of the State Bar Council as a practicing Advocate from 31-12-2019 till 31-03-2024. The petitioner’s provisional licence was subsequently required to be converted into permanent one on the production of the degree certificate. He was awarded his degree on 21-09-2022 and thereafter he submitted it along with an application, to the State Bar Council of the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir (‘Bar Council of J&K’), but no steps were taken to process it.
On 31-03-2023, the petitioner assumed the office of Prosecuting officer. Respondent 1 initiated action against the petitioner in terms of Rule 49 of the Bar Council of India Rules (‘BCI Rules’) and cancelled his provisional licence while exercising the powers of the State Bar Council under Section 58 of the Advocates Act, 1961 (‘Advocates Act’), read with the notification dated 05-08-2025.
The petitioner challenged the cancellation on the grounds that the impugned order was without jurisdiction as Respondent 1 could not have acted as the Bar Council of J&K and that no opinion from the Bar Council of India was obtained by Respondent 1. Respondent 1 had invoked the power of refusal as envisaged in terms of Section 26 of the Advocates Act which applied to a candidate seeking enrollment while the petitioner in the present case was enrolled as an advocate.
The petitioner further contended that Respondent 1 did not take recourse to Section 35 of the Advocates Act to inform the State Bar Council that the petitioner’s appointment was a misconduct. He alleged that the action of Respondent 1 prejudiced the petitioner as he would lose practice undertaken by him for the period while he was on the provisional licence and the said experience would not be counted for any future employment.
However, Respondent 1 contended that no fundamental, statutory or legal right of the petitioner was violated to give him the cause to file the writ petition. It was alleged that the petitioner had suppressed material fact of him joining the government service as well as the fact that he was granted provisional enrollment temporarily for a period of one year that had expired. It was further submitted that the petitioner had applied for issuance of Absolute Licence along with original verification report in respect of petitioner’s LLB degree. However, the said verification was found to be against the rules because verification of the certificates of the candidates was confidential, and such documents were dispatched only to the department concerned under confidential cover. It was also alleged that the petitioner ceased to be an Advocate on his joining the government service as per Rule 49 of the BCI Rules.
The matter was also placed before the Enrollment Committee which recommended that petitioner’s application was liable to be rejected as it was devoid of merit and his provisional licence, which had already expired, might be treated as cancelled upon his appointment in the service. The recommendations were accepted by the competent authority.
Additionally, the petitioner’s counsel had submitted that the cancellation order was issued in complete disregard to the procedure laid down in the Advocates Act. Per contra, the respondent’s counsel submitted that the respondent had followed the procedure and that the petitioner was guilty of misrepresentation and concealment of facts, and therefore, the Court could not come to his rescue.
Analysis and Decision:
The Court noted that it was not the disputed eligibility of the petitioner to have an absolute licence to practice law, but an alleged non-communication of his appointment in government service that had prompted Respondent 1 to issue the impugned order and notification. The impugned order clarified that the petitioner had been pursuing his cause of obtaining the Absolute Licence and had submitted his application 12-10-2022, much before the date of his appointment as Prosecuting Officer on 27-03-2023. Thus, it was evident that his application was lying with Respondent 1 for at least 5 months.
The Court opined that since the petitioner had applied for the issuance of the Absolute Licence before the date of his selection, the reasonable prognosis was that he should have been issued the Absolute Licence. The delay was on the part of Respondent 1, and the petitioner could not be held accountable for it. The Court observed that though the petitioner should have informed Respondent 1 about his appointment in the service, but since he was under the belief that his application might have been decided, an action as harsh as the impugned order and notification should not have been initiated.
The Court observed that Rules 49 and 5(1) of the BCI Rules envisaged that a salaried person must not practice as a full-time Advocate, and to achieve that objective, Respondent 1 could have treated the petitioner to have lost his right of practice from the date of his appointment.
Consequently, while allowing the writ petition, the Court quashed the order and notification cancelling the provisional licence of the petitioner and directed Respondent 1 to treat the petitioner to be on the rolls of the Bar Council of J&K from the date of his enrolment till the date of his appointment.
[John Mohammad Wani v. Bar Council of Jammu and Kashmir, WP (C) No. 959 of 2025, decided on 01-09-2025]
*Judgment authored by: Justice Moksha Khajuria Kazmi
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the Petitioner: Syed Faisal Qadri, Sr. Advocate with Mariya Ashraf, Advocate.
For the Respondents: Shah Aamir, Advocate.
