Plea against Bar Council of Delhi decision to make Aadhaar, voter ID with city address mandatory for enrolment

A single judge bench of Justice Prathiba Singh asked the petitioner to implead the Bar Council of India in the matter and further asked the parties to assist the court on the next date of hearing.

The plea states that the notification puts a "blanket restriction on enrolment with Bar Council of Delhi". (File photo)

3 min readNew DelhiApr 20, 2023 06:56 PM IST First published on: Apr 20, 2023 at 06:56 PM IST

A plea has been moved in the Delhi High Court challenging an April 13 notification issued by the Bar Council of Delhi making Aadhaar and voter identity card, bearing address of Delhi-NCR, mandatory for enrolment of law graduates with the BCD.

A single judge bench of Justice Prathiba Singh Thursday asked the petitioner to implead the Bar Council of India in the matter and further asked the parties to assist the court on the next date of hearing on whether the domicile requirement is there in State Bar Councils and in which States the same is imposed.

“Let the amended memo of parties be filed within five days,” the High Court said, listing it for hearing on May 2.

The petitioner, Rajani Kumari, a law graduate from Campus Law Centre, University of Delhi, has stated in the plea that the BCD has “deliberately excluded law graduates who are domiciled outside Delhi/NCR” and come from far away parts of the country to practice law in Delhi from eligibility for enrolment with the Bar Council of Delhi.

The BCD’s notification states “… all those law graduates who wish to apply for enrolment with the Bar Council of Delhi shall be required to attach copy of Aadhaar Card and Voter ID Card of Delhi/NCR (National Capital Region) along with their respective application and other documents, and the Aadhaar Card and Voter ID Card must bear the address of Delhi or NCR. Henceforth, no enrolment shall be done without the copy of Aadhaar Card and Voter ID Card bearing the address of Delhi/NCR”.

The plea seeks a declaration that the notification is violative of part III of the Constitution and further seeks quashing of the same as it relates to a stipulation concerning eligibility disabling the law graduates domiciled outside Delhi / NCR from getting enrolled with the Bar Council of Delhi.

The plea asserts that Article 19 of the Constitution guarantees the right to freedom of speech and expression, the right to assemble peaceably and the right to form associations or unions and the requirement of an Aadhaar and Voter ID card with a Delhi/NCR address will pose an “unreasonable restriction on the exercise of these rights”.

“It hinders the ability of law graduates from other states to join the legal profession in Delhi or NCR, and it limits their ability to form associations with other legal professionals in these areas… changing the address on voter ID card would essentially mean that a law graduate belonging to a place of domicile other than Delhi/ NCR will have to give up their voting rights in their original place of domicile solely on the basis of their employment in a different constituency,” the plea further states.

The plea further states that the notification puts a “blanket restriction on enrolment with Bar Council of Delhi” and is “completely silent about the objective” it seeks to achieve from the classification entailed in it