The Supreme Court Advocates on Record Association Monday condemned the Enforcement Directorate’s summons, later retracted, to Senior Advocate Arvind Datar in connection with a probe against his client.
The association called it “an arbitrary exercise of executive power” which “threatens the judiciary’s independence”.
The ED summons to Datar had come during an investigation into a case of alleged financial impropriety involving a client. The agency walked back its move later.
In a statement, the association expressed “strong disapproval and unequivocal condemnation of the Enforcement Directorate’s recent issuance of a notice to Mr. Arvind Datar, Senior Advocate, in connection with a legal opinion rendered by him in the course of his professional duties.”
The statement said: “This action by the ED is not only unwarranted but reflects a disturbing trend of investigative overreach that threatens the independence of the legal profession and undermines the very foundation of the rule of law.”
Terming Datar as a respected Senior Advocate of “unimpeachable integrity who has consistently upheld the highest standards of professional conduct and legal ethics,” the Association said that to summon a senior member of the Bar for discharging his professional responsibility is a misuse of authority and an affront to the sanctity of the advocate’s role.
The statement said “undermining the professional independence of advocates ultimately threatens the judiciary’s independence itself, as both stand or fall together.”
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It said the Supreme Court “has, time and again, held that advocates are not liable for the alleged acts of their clients simply for rendering legal opinions. The ED’s action conflates legal advice with criminal complicity, a proposition that is constitutionally untenable and legally unjustifiable.”
The lawyers body said “even though the said summon…has been withdrawn by the ED subsequently, SCAORA lodges its strong protest against the arbitrary exercise of executive power by the agencies, which is considered as an outreach over the independence of Bar and the Judiciary”.
The agency had summoned him to answer queries over the legal opinion tendered to Care Health Insurance Ltd over the grant of employee stock option plan worth over `250 crore to former Religare Enterprises chairperson Rashmi Saluja.
