The Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association (SCAORA) has raised alarm over what it terms a “serious infringement” on the independence of the legal profession and lawyer-client confidentiality, following the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) summons to senior advocate Pratap Venugopal. In a letter addressed to Chief Justice of India Bhushan R Gavai on Friday, the Association urged the Supreme Court to take suo motu cognizance of the issue.
Venugopal, who was designated as a senior advocate earlier this year, received a summons from the ED on June 19 under Section 50 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002. The summons relates to the agency’s ongoing investigation into the allotment of Employee Stock Option Plan (ESOP) by Care Health Insurance to former Religare Enterprises Chairperson Rashmi Saluja. Venugopal was the Advocate-on-Record (AoR) for a legal opinion authored by senior counsel Arvind Datar, which supported the ESOP allotment.
Earlier this month, the ED had also summoned Datar, but withdrew the notice after protests from members of the legal fraternity.
In its June 20 letter, SCAORA President Vipin Nair described the ED’s action as “a deeply disquieting development,” warning that such coercive measures could strike at the core of legal privilege and the rule of law. “The role of an advocate in offering legal advice is both privileged and protected. Interference by investigative agencies, particularly in respect of opinions rendered in a professional capacity—strikes at the core of the rule of law,” the letter stated.
SCAORA termed the move an “impermissible transgression” of lawyer-client privilege and warned that it could have a chilling effect on the legal community. The Association urged the apex court to examine the legality and propriety of summoning lawyers for rendering professional opinions, and to frame institutional safeguards against such incursions in the future.
This is the second such representation made by SCAORA in recent days. On June 16, it had issued a public statement condemning the ED’s notice to Arvind Datar as “unwarranted” and indicative of increasing investigative overreach.
On June 17, the Delhi High Court Bar Association passed a resolution criticising the ED’s move as a direct threat to the constitutional right to legal representation and fair trial. The Gujarat High Court Advocates Association also convened an emergency meeting, during which its president Brijesh Trivedi condemned the ED’s actions as violative of legal independence and called for statutory amendments to the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 to safeguard attorney-client privilege.
