THE GATECRASHERS

by Mohanavadivelan S , July 10, 2016

Everyone hates advocates till he / she needs one for him or her, so goes the saying. Now, even if he/she needs one, it seems the present scenario would make that one to hate the advocates forever during the course of rest of his / her life. We must feel abashed for being in such a situation brought on us by the deeds of members of our own profession. At the time when the image of the advocates, in Tamilnadu, particularly in Chennai is ebbing away and they are not in the good books of the men that matters in the society, the activities of a countable few of them still makes it worse and the denigration of advocates in public is rampant, resultantly. There has been a vicious unwritten system called “double bail” in the metropolitan magistrate courts, making it redundant that hiring of the services of the lawyer is wholly the choice of the clients.

The double bail system is put to use by the advocates for whom the courts are home away from home, sheltered in the court campus itself, day in and day out and operate on the tips of the touts both in the courts and in police. The lack of knowledge and intelligence in the field of laws and procedures, the deficiency in language and expertise in conducting the cases, the avarice in earning money on daily basis and the reluctance to enrich themselves, knowledge wise, owing to their infamous entry in to the legal profession, were the basis for this plight. No advocate practicing in the metropolitan magistrate courts in Chennai, failed to come across or had been in the receiving end at least once, respecting this double bail system or ordeal and found himself in embarrassing situation. The double bail practitioners have no intention to appear in the respective case, rather it’s a means a way for their earning or extortion. Aside this, the site of an advocate, advancing towards the general public entering the courts, to canvass them for the affidavit to be notarized, is an eye sore for anyone happened to be there and see this. This has the distinction of bringing disrepute to the advocates and their profession initially and a pioneer in that respect, only solace being the absence of viciousness in it. To state that this made the advocates profession a laughing stock in the estimation of the general public, and further the double bail system made the public to hate and disrespect us is no exaggeration, who beat their brains over whether lawyers themselves have become rowdies or rowdies have become lawyers. The degeneration and the degradation in the quality of this profession have been due to the combination of both without doubt. With that said, if one feels that these kind of practice ends with metropolitan courts alone, and the higher courts are devoid of the nefarious system of double bail, he or she is proved wrong. In the recent past, in the case of the murder of one miss.Swathi, the software professional, one senior advocate Mr.Krishnamoorthy, caught everyone, be in the advocate profession, the police, the victim’s family and the one for whom he moved the bail application and his family too, by appearing for the accused moving an application for bail without called for and being instructed to do so, on his own, which is unbecoming of an advocate of his standing. This turned everyone in his grave. A gate crashing activity indeed it was, for cheap publicity, which announced with no uncertain terms that the double bail system has not spared even the high echelons of the judiciary, pushing down the reputation of the advocate’s profession to abyss and it’s image to hit an all time low in the minds of the right thinking and even not thinking members