The Allahabad High Court has ruled that lawyers facing criminal cases cannot be allowed to contest cases and that the trial in such cases against them be transferred to courts in adjoining districts at least 100 kilometres away.Dismissing a petition of an advocate seeking action against police personnel for initiating action against him in a criminal case, the single bench of Justice Vinod Diwakar observed, “Law dies twice, once when its officers turn criminal, and again when judges choose silence over judicial courage. In both cases, the rule of law is the first casualty.”Also Read | Why a proposal to expand district courts’ jurisdiction has sparked a strike at Delhi High CourtThe lawyer, practicing in the Etawah district court, is facing three criminal cases while his five brothers have 31 criminal cases registered against them, it is learnt.The bench also issued orders to the Secretary, Bar Council of Uttar Pradesh, to take “immediate and effective steps to ensure that an FIR is registered against each of the 105 identified advocates whose degrees have been found to be forged during verification, for the offences of forgery, cheating, and impersonation, or under any other provision of law applicable in the facts of each case”.“The material placed before the court discloses a disquieting state of affairs — while the data furnished by police authorities reflects that a considerable number of criminal cases stand registered against advocates across various districts, the disciplinary proceedings initiated by the Bar Council of Uttar Pradesh are conspicuously limited to only a handful of advocates, suggesting that the institutional mechanism for internal regulation and discipline within the Bar has remained largely dormant and has not kept pace with the gravity and volume of the complaints and cases unreported,” the bench wrote in its order.Also Read | After meeting Law Minister, Delhi HC lawyers call off strike over jurisdiction concerns“In several Bar Associations — most notably in Gorakhpur and Kanpur — office-bearing positions are held by individuals with established criminal records. Furthermore, in nearly every district court, organized gangs of law graduates registered with the Bar Councils have entrenched themselves for the purpose of executing court decrees, resolving disputes outside the court through coercive means, intimidating vulnerable litigants, and actively carrying out the forcible eviction of tenants and property occupants,” it added.The bench also expressed concern that judges of district courts have, by and large, refrained from taking any decisive action in such matters or have chosen not to acknowledge the gravity of the problem due to a belief that these “socially and politically motivated gangs of law graduates enjoy protection from pressure groups and centres of social and political power-brokerage”.Story continues below this adAs a consequence, young advocates and newly recruited judicial officers are finding it increasingly difficult to function effectively, fairly and independently within an “unconducive professional environment, vitiated by small but powerful and dominant groups”, it added.Also Read | ‘Counsel, you are on mute’: The world of virtual courtsPolice statistical reportThe statistical report filed by police suggested that 5,14,439 advocates are presently enrolled with the Bar Council of Uttar Pradesh, of whom certificates of practice have been issued to 2,49,809.During the verification process, the enrollments of 105 advocates were found to be fake. It was further clarified that police verification was not undertaken during the certificate of practice verification process, as it was not mandated.The report said a total of 4,157 advocates are facing 5,056 criminal cases in 75 districts, seven commissionerates, and Government Railway Police jurisdictions.Story continues below this adOn this, the bench observed that it was a matter of “grave concern that certain advocates in the State of Uttar Pradesh, despite having as many as 46 FIRs registered against them, continue to be permitted to practice before the courts of law”.“The single most alarming entry in the entire Compilation is Wazirgunj police station, Lucknow, which alone accounts for 422 advocates against whom cases are registered, with 236 FIRs. This is more than three times the advocate count of any other single police station in the State and suggests a very high concentration of alleged offending conduct among advocates operating in the vicinity of Lucknow courts,” it added.Advocates with fake degreesThe records also revealed that the Bar Council of Uttar Pradesh had identified 105 advocates with fake degrees of whom 65 had their LL.B. degrees, 28 their graduation degrees, and five their integrated B.A. LL.B. degrees forged.Also, intermediate and high school certificates were also found to be forged of three advocates each. One advocate was even found to have forged a BCA degree.Story continues below this ad“The identification of only 105 advocates with fake qualifications out of an active roll of over 5,14,000 advocates is statistically implausible and administratively unconvincing. It prima-facie seems the verification exercise is cosmetic,” the bench said.“The admission that no police verification is conducted at the time of COP issuance reveals a fundamental and inexcusable gap in the regulatory framework. Unlike other regulated professions — medicine, teaching, accountancy, civil services — where character verification and criminal antecedent checks are mandatory prerequisites. The legal profession in Uttar Pradesh has no such safeguard and proper mechanism at the point of entry. There is structural absence of entry-level scrutiny in the entire process of registration. This structural vacuum has been deliberately maintained or negligently perpetuated over decades,” it added.“The list of fake-degree advocates includes individuals enrolled as far back as 1991 and 1992. This means the Bar Council of Uttar Pradesh failed to detect forged qualifications since 1991. During this entire period, these individuals appeared in courts, filed vakalatnamas, addressed judges, and participated in the administration of justice — all without any legal right to do so. Every order passed in proceedings in which such advocates appeared is potentially tainted and amounts to fraud against the institution, and thus detrimental to the administration of justice,” it said.A compliance report should be filed before the court within 30 days, it said.Story continues below this ad“The Commissioner of Police/SSP of each district shall ensure that, immediately upon registration of an FIR against an advocate, and filing of the Final Report/charge-sheet, intimation at both stages is sent forthwith to the District Judge and the Chief Judicial Magistrate, with a copy to the Joint Director (Prosecution). The Commissioner of Police/S.S.P. shall further ensure that a copy of every such FIR is also sent to the office of the Secretary, Bar Council of Uttar Pradesh, for necessary action. The S.H.O. concerned shall maintain a separate register to give effect to this direction,” the bench maintained.The bench said “every enrolled advocate shall be required to file a mandatory annual affidavit disclosing any criminal case registered, charge-sheeted, or tried against them during the preceding year. False disclosure must attract automatic suspension of enrollment”.The Bar Council may cross-verify these disclosures with court records and police databases, it added.The HC listed the matter for next hearing on August 20.