The Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and R. Mahadevan heard a petition filed by K.R. Sudersan, a chartered accountant who later obtained a law degree. The Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry had refused his enrolment as an advocate on the ground that a criminal case is pending against him. The petitioner contended that the refusal lacked statutory basis.
Senior Advocate Nikhil Goel, appearing for Sudersan, informed the court that the Madras High Court in 2015, through a single judge, had directed the Bar Council of India to ensure that law graduates facing pending criminal cases are not enrolled as advocates. A full bench of the Madras High Court later affirmed that direction as a temporary measure, to remain in force until Parliament amended the law. Earlier this year a division bench of the Madras High Court referred the correctness of that view to a larger bench after observing that the Advocates Act does not empower the High Court to prescribe an additional disqualification for enrolment beyond those contained in Section 24A.
Goel submitted that Sudersan had challenged the full bench decision before the Supreme Court and had also filed a writ petition seeking enrolment. He added that the Madras High Court has since referred the issue to a bench of five judges. To underscore the inconsistency, Goel pointed out that one of the convicts in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who had undergone thirty‑one years of imprisonment, was enrolled as an advocate in April 2026. He contrasted this with the comparatively less serious allegations against his client and sought interim relief, requesting that Sudersan be enrolled pending the final decision of the five‑judge bench.
Justice Sandeep Mehta posed a question to Senior Advocate S. Gurukrishnakumar, counsel for the Bar Council of India, asking why enrolment had been denied. Gurukrishnakumar relied on the Madras High Court’s directions while acknowledging that Section 24A of the Advocates Act does not contain a disqualification on the ground of a pending criminal case. Justice Mehta observed that the restriction imposed by the Bar Council fell outside the scope of the Act. He remarked that the council was enrolling convicts across the country while objecting to the enrolment of a person facing a comparatively minor allegation.
After hearing the submissions, the bench directed the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry to provisionally enrol K.R. Sudersan and issue his enrolment certificate within two weeks. The court granted the Bar Council of India and the State Bar Council two months to file their counter affidavit and allowed the petitioner one month thereafter to file a rejoinder.
Following the dictation of the order, Justice Mehta made an oral observation that the order could be allowed immediately and that the existing direction was completely against the law. When Gurukrishnakumar submitted that there was a larger concern, Justice Mehta responded that the real larger concern was the Bar Council of India granting recognition to law colleges that are run in garages. He stated, “The Bar Council of India which grants recognition to colleges that are run in garages, that is the larger concern.” Justice Vikram Nath then added a comment that the counsel should leave the court immediately or risk getting into bigger trouble.
The case is recorded as W.P.(C) No. 151/2026, Diary No. 6202/2026, titled K.R. Sudersan v. Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry.