Change the Lawyer, Not the Law? Self-Regulation, Independence of the Bar and Legal Education

An analysis of the Supreme Court’s decision in Ajay Vijh v. Indian Banks Assn., examining the independence and self-regulation of the Bar, disciplinary jurisdiction over advocates, the need for accountability within Bar Councils, and the Court’s directions on Continuing Legal Education and a proposed National Legal Academy.

In the ordinary run of things, a dispute over one advocate’s inclusion in a bank’s Caution List would attract little attention beyond the parties involved. Yet Ajay Vijh v. Indian Banks Assn.¹, decided by the Supreme Court of India on 7 July 2026 by a Bench of Justices Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Alok Aradhe is not an ordinary case. It uses a narrow grievance to address a shapeshifting structural question that frequently troubles the legal profession.

The facts are rather straightforward. An advocate empanelled with Canara Bank furnished a title opinion in 2015 based on title search on the basis of what he loosely claimed as best effort. The Bank, after perusing the advocate’s response, concluded the opinion was negligent and removed him from its panel. But the Bank went further. It reported his name to the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA), which placed him on a list titled “Third Party Entities Involved in Fraud” — as list created with the statutory blessings of Reserve Bank of India. The list was circulated to every member bank in the country. The list had reputational consequences for the lawyer but above all it transgressed the client autonomy that lies at the heart of client-attorney relationship.

Apart from holding the writ petition maintainable, the Supreme Court set aside the inclusion of the advocate in the Bank’s Caution List. It held that the Caution List, as conceived under Reserve Bank of India Guidelines, is confined to egregious cases of fraud, dishonesty and criminality. It has no application to bona fide errors of professional judgment. It held, further, that disciplinary jurisdiction over an advocate’s conduct lies exclusively with the Bar Councils under the Advocates Act, 1961, and that a writ petition against the IBA is maintainable because the list performs a function of public character.

The private dispute between the advocate and the bank concerned concludes at para 28 of the judgment; and it could have well ended here. However, the Supreme Court, talking to the future, does examine the institutional framework and lays the foundation for future reform. What follows, thereafter, are two important aspects of wider significance. The first concerns the manner in which clients can assess the performance of their advocates. The second underscores the importance of Continuing Legal Education.

While the (malicious) consequences faced by advocates for the discharge of their professional duties had already been examined in Summoning Advocates Who Give Legal Opinion or Represent Parties During Investigation of Cases and Related Issues, In re² this judgment articulates with greater clarity the foundational principle that “independence of the legal profession is as important as the independence of the judiciary”. The phrase “independence” when used for the Bar is “amorphous”³ but the restatement of the principle is significant.

Though not specifically dealt with in the judgment, but experience shows that empanelment of an advocate, for all practical purposes, results in a kind of quasi-employment as is more likely to create a serious economic reliance if not economic dependence. This may have an adverse bearing on the professional judgment. For the independence of the profession, it is of great significance to ensure that a client does not acquire a chilling influence over the professional judgment of its empanelled lawyer. As the saying goes, “When you can’t change the law, change the lawyer.”

Self-regulation and independence of the Bar

The independence of the Bar is not a professional courtesy. It is protected because lawyers must be free to advise unpopular clients, take positions against powerful institutions, and argue against the State without fear of retaliation, in any manner. The court reaffirmed this in unambiguous terms, holding that only the Bar Councils alone, i.e., bodies composed of members of the profession itself may sit in judgment over an advocate’s professional conduct. The client only has a residual right to change its advocate.

In my view, this institutional safeguard is not merely about professional regulation. It exists to preserve the courage and independence of the legal profession by ensuring that advocates are not exposed to disciplinary consequences at the instance of disgruntled litigants or in response to judicial displeasure arising from the causes they undertake or the arguments they advance including objections they raise.

To me as a practitioner before the highest court of the land, this judgment is not mere pedantic doctrinal abstraction but is rooted in the statutes as well as in principle of fairness. Judging professional work requires professional competence — the same reason why one has subject-matter experts in tribunals. In the case at hand, a bank official assessing whether a 2015 title search met the applicable standard of care is not equipped to make that determination fairly and dispassionately as he may not be personally aware of the functioning of the Sub-Registrar’s office or the effect of the Registration Act, 1908. It is, thus, only fair that a Disciplinary Committee of lawyers, familiar with prevailing practice and the limitations of registry records considers the grievance of the bank. Allowing banks to bypass this mechanism and issue what amounts to an industry-wide declaration of incompetence amount to what could be considered as a professional equivalent of “notifying a tribe”⁴. This is precisely the kind of intimidation that the Advocates Act, 1961 was designed to prevent.

A fearless Bar is possible only when advocates can discharge their professional obligations without apprehension that their conduct will be judged outside the framework established by law or face consequences at the instances of large clients including government panels. The kind of clients you represent becomes a consideration at various stages of one’s career, and this itself is a distortion and threat to independence of the profession.

The consequences of such reprisals at the instance of the clients extend well beyond the individual advocate. Some clients, by virtue of their economic strength, institutional influence, or political importance, are simply too powerful. A (prolonged) dispute with such a client can leave a lasting scar on a lawyer’s professional life. Time, resources, and reputation become tied up in defending oneself rather than serving future clients. The lawyer risks being trapped in a cycle where the cost of asserting professional independence far outweighs the immediate brief. The threat is not confined to the advocate directly affected. It sends a signal to the wider profession. If lawyers know that an unpopular opinion, candid legal advice, or a principled refusal to act contrary to law may invite retaliation, blacklisting, or inclusion in a “Caution List”, many will inevitably moderate their advice to avoid reputational or harsh economic consequences. The chilling effect is subtle but profound. In such a situation, independence is eroded not by express coercion but by the anticipation of it. The judgment at hand, therefore, offers a superior vantage point for assessment of subtle threats to independence of the Bar.

In my view, this concern assumes particular significance for government advocates, especially Public Prosecutors appointed on contractual basis who are tasked with providing reports to the court for extending custody under strict penal legislations. Their foremost obligation is not to secure convictions or advance the wishes of the agency, but to ensure the fair administration of justice. The statutory framework governing prosecutions rests upon the expectation that prosecutors will exercise independent judgment, disclose exculpatory material where required, and act fairly even when doing so may be inconvenient to the State. A fear of reprisal may have an adverse effect on the role of the prosecutor. If government counsel must constantly fear reprisals, adverse career consequences, removal from the panel or institutional blacklisting for discharging these duties, the fairness of the criminal justice system itself is imperilled. Amongst many duties of prosecutors explained by Robert Jackson one that had caught my attention is:

Any prosecutor who risks his day-to-day professional name for fair dealing to build up statistics of success has a perverted sense of practical values, as well as defects of character. Whether one seeks promotion to a judgeship, as many prosecutors rightly do, or whether he returns to private practice, he can have no better asset than to have his profession recognise that his attitude toward those who feel his power has been dispassionate, reasonable and just.⁵

The courage of the legal profession is, therefore, not merely a private virtue. It is an institutional necessity that sustains the Rule of Law as well as the dignity of the courts.

The Supreme Court’s direction issued to the Bar Council of India reflects the Court’s balanced approach. Recognising that litigants such as banks may perceive peer review through the disciplinary process as ineffective, the Supreme Court directed the Bar Council of India to undertake a performance audit of its own disciplinary machinery, signalling a commitment to subjecting the peer review mechanism itself to objective scrutiny.

Completing the arc: Continuing Legal Education

The second, and in my view, a more forward-looking strand of the judgment concerns what happens after enrolment. India invests considerable institutional energy in legal education before a lawyer is admitted to practice. After enrolment, however, there is no structured mechanism to keep a lawyer’s knowledge current. An advocate enrolled decades ago may practise an entire career without any mandated exposure to legislative amendments, evolving doctrine, or changes in procedure or exposure to technology. In public domain, information galore but structured learning eludes.

Other jurisdictions closed this gap long ago. The court has now directed the Bar Council of India to institutionalise Continuing Legal Education and to consider establishing a National Legal Academy, modelled on the National Judicial Academy that trains Judges. This is a significant intervention for a straightforward reason: Most instances of professional negligence are not failures of integrity but failures of knowledge or standard practices that ought to be followed.

Continuing Legal Education is intricately connected to the independence of the Bar because an advocate who lacks up to date legal knowledge is more likely to defer to Judges, yield to powerful clients, or follow prevailing practices without questioning them. The finest lawyers never cease to be students of the law. Competence gives lawyers the confidence to advance unpopular arguments, challenge executive action, and resist pressure from clients or the State. Such a lawyer may be well aware of the global march of professional excellence rather than following an obsolete precedent handed down. The law is a living discipline, constantly reshaped by new judgments, technologies, social realities, and constitutional aspirations. Continuing Legal Education is, therefore, not an optional exercise but an essential professional obligation. It equips advocates to refine their craft; question settled assumptions and discover new methods of advancing justice. In my book, In Chambers: A Young Lawyer’s Guide to Practice, Ethics, and Advocacy⁶, I have made a humble attempt to introduce young practising lawyers to the newer disciplines having an impact on the legal profession such as science of decision-making and technology.

In a constitutional democracy as vast and diverse as India, every lawyer must be capable of carrying a share of the Constitution’s promise. Whether appearing before a trial court in a remote district or the Supreme Court of India, each advocate is a constitutional actor whose competence can shape lives and liberties. This more so, when at the highest court we have often seen the Supreme Court ask the advocate appearing before it — “[W]here have you taken this point in the court below?” Law is not top down, and the training, therefore, must be democratised. It will need to be seen whether such Continuing Legal Education would be turned into a productive tool or an exercise in “business development”. There is much scholarly work already done in India⁷ that could provide a useful starting point for the Bar Council India.

The road ahead

By pairing the reaffirmation of self-regulation with a demand for institutional accountability, an audit on one side, mandatory education on the other, the Supreme Court of India has attempted something more ambitious than a mere dispute resolution between a bank and its counsel. It has tried to secure the conditions under which self-regulation of the legal profession continues to deserve public confidence. In my view, the court’s direction to audit the Bar Councils’ disciplinary performance and to institutionalise ongoing legal education is best understood as an attempt to close that vacuum from within, before it is closed from without. The risk of eroding public confidence in the legal profession is too great to ignore.

An independent Bar is sustained not only by courage but also by intellectual discipline, for it is through continuous study that lawyers acquire the confidence to innovate, challenge orthodoxy, and defend the Rule of Law. Every lawyer must train to incrementally push the boundaries of law inching closer to a more just society.

The matter has been listed for further directions with the Bar Council of India expected to report on the steps it proposes to take. This presents a formidable challenge in a country where even the introduction of the Bar Council of India’s post admission “qualifying” examination was met with considerable resistance, and the process of verifying enrolled advocates took years to complete. Against this backdrop, the court’s directions seek to cultivate the inner morality of the legal professionals. Whether the profession as a whole and not just the Bar Council of India treats this as a genuine opportunity for reform, or as another direction to be acknowledged and shelved, will determine whether the judgment is remembered as a turning point or merely as a well-intentioned aside.