Bar of this country deserves better: 2 BCI members demand Mishra’s resignation

Speaking to The Indian Express, Advocate Kumar said: “I demanded that the Chairman resign from his post forthwith. Advocate Srinath Tripathi, member of BCI (from Uttar Pradesh), supported my demand. Reddy, who has written a letter separately to Mishra seeking his resignation, was not present at the meeting.” Later, Kumar too sent a letter to Mishra raising the demand.

The letters written by the BCI members sought Mishra’s resignation in the larger interest of the Bar Council and the legal profession and to pave the way for institutional renewal. Reddy in his letter said: “The Bar of this country deserves better than what it is presently receiving from its own council.”

Kumar said, “The BCI must once again become a truly democratic, independent and representative body of the advocates of this country, functioning strictly in accordance with the Advocates Act, the rule of law and the constitutional values which the legal profession is duty-bound to uphold.”

Both the members made it clear that they were demanding the resignation with a deep sense of concern and anguish regarding the present functioning of the BCI, in particular the manner in which the office of its Chairman has come to be exercised under Mishra’s leadership.

Reddy said: “I hold no personal animosity towards you. I have served alongside you on this Council for a decade. It is precisely because I have watched this institution from within for that period that I am able to say, with a clear conscience, that it will not recover while you remain in the Chair. Standing down now, on your own accord, is the one course still open to you that would be to your credit.”

Reacting to Reddy’s letter, Mishra said: “He is not the Co-Chairman. He is not even a member of State Bar Council. While he was a member of BCI, he was opposed to me, tried to contest against me, but couldn’t get even a proposer. Politically also he is opposed to me… Everything is transparent here. He has made all false and baseless allegations after getting ousted from the Bar Council.”

In response to Kumar’s allegations, he said: “It’s a democratic institution; every member has the right to have his voice.”

Mishra came to be surrounded by controversy after he issued a directive on August 13, asking state Bar councils not to enrol students of NALSAR’s (National Academy of Legal Studies and Research, University of Law, Hyderabad) 2026 batch following a campaign by around 450 students of NALSAR opposing an invitation to CJI Surya Kant to the university convocation. Mishra withdrew the circular hours later, saying the BCI had closed the proceedings after concluding that the students had “no role in any disturbance or movement”.

Kumar and Reddy in their letters stated that the direction against the graduating batch of NALSAR was issued without material being placed before the BCI, without the Council deliberating upon it, and without any resolution of the BCI authorising it.

Reddy said: “I was not consulted. To the best of my knowledge, the Council as a body was not consulted. The office of Chairman was used to threaten the entire graduating batch of law students — young men/women with no power and no voice — with exclusion from the profession, as a reprisal for having held an opinion.”

Kumar said: “Every citizen has the right to express an opinion, including an opinion disagreeing with persons occupying the highest constitutional offices. Peaceful dissent or disagreement over the choice of a Chief Guest cannot be transformed into a ground for threatening a student’s future entry into the legal profession.”

14 yrs in office

A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the legality of Mishra’s prolonged tenure and seeking his removal from the post.

Mishra was first elected as BCI Chairman in 2012. Although he briefly demitted office in 2014, he returned in November that year and has remained in the post since then, said the plea, filed by advocate Yogamaya MG.

The petition contends that Rule 12(2) of the BCI prescribes a two-year term for the chairman and vice-chairman, or until cessation of membership, whichever is earlier.

Both Kumar and Reddy also opposed Mishra continuing as BCI Chairman. Reddy said: “You have held office continuously since 2012, and were returned for a further consecutive term in 2025. This is without precedent. An elected office that has one occupant for fourteen years has ceased, in any real sense, to be an elected office.”

Kumar said: “Such prolonged concentration of authority in a single individual is unhealthy for a statutory institution founded upon democratic representation, collective responsibility and institutional decision-making. Over the years, the functioning of the BCI has increasingly come to be identified with the authority and decisions of its Chairman rather than with the collective will of the Council.”

Mishra refuted this claim, saying there is no fixed tenure under the Advocates Act for a Chairman to continue in the office. “I am an elected member by my voters and thus there cannot be a limit on my tenure,” he told the media.

Functioning of General Council

Reddy alleged that during Mishra’s tenure, factions have been created and sustained within State Bar Councils and key positions in institutions run by the Council have been held by persons from Mishra’s family.

Further, attempts have been made to control the functioning of State Bar Councils through inclusion of the nominated or ad hoc committees, or by placing persons who do not possess an electoral mandate in positions of authority over elected representatives. “Altering the number of seats after completion of the electoral process is wholly alien to basic democratic principles,” Kumar wrote in his letter.

Concerns over BCI Trust 

One of the prime concerns raised is about the formation of the BCI Trust ‘PEARL First’, which came to be registered on September 17, 2020, with trustees allegedly chosen by Mishra. Reddy has claimed a resolution was moved for transferring a sum of Rs 150 crore of BCI funds to the newly created trust. Both BCI members have alleged that other Council members have kept in the dark about the functioning of the new trust.

Reddy said he has received regular and credible complaints from more than one state that managements of new law colleges approaching the BCI for approval, and managements of existing colleges approaching it for renewal, are being required to make “contributions” to the said trust in amounts ranging from Rs 25 lakh to Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1 crore.

‘Erosion of confidence’

On the recent protest by Advocates, held outside the BCI office demanding Mishra’s resignation, Reddy and Kumar in their letters said young advocates have the most to gain from a functioning Council and the most to lose from a captured one.

Reddy in his letter said: “Emergence of such expressions of dissatisfaction from within the legal profession cannot simply be ignored. They reflect a serious erosion of confidence in the manner in which the apex statutory body of advocates is presently being administered.”

Kumar said the disappointment among the lawyer community is not based upon a single incident. It arises from an “accumulation of concerns, prolonged concentration of authority”. To restore confidence in the Council, the question of its Chairman’s continuance is no longer a matter of personal preference, but a question of institutional survival, he said.

Reddy in his letter has also demanded a special meeting of the BCI. Further, he requested a special audit of the accounts of both the BCI and ‘Trust PEARL – First’ by an independent firm empanelled with the CAG.