1 in 3 lawyers in India may be fake; Supreme Court to examine digital registry

The Times of India reports that the Supreme Court has taken up a serious petition flagging that roughly one in three lawyers practising in India may not hold valid credentials, agreeing to examine a proposal for a mandatory digital registry of all enrolled advocates. The Hindu adds that the court has formally sought responses from the Central government and the Bar Council of India on the plea, which also proposes a social media code of conduct for lawyers.

The petition points to a systemic failure in how bar councils across states verify and maintain rolls of enrolled advocates. A centralised, publicly accessible digital registry would allow courts, clients, and employers to instantly confirm whether a lawyer is genuinely enrolled and in good standing — something that currently has no reliable national mechanism.

The Bar Council of India is the apex statutory body that regulates legal education and the profession, but enrolment is managed by individual state bar councils, creating gaps that allegedly enable fraudulent practice. The Supreme Court's intervention signals judicial recognition that the problem is widespread enough to require a structural fix.

For ordinary Indians — who often engage lawyers at moments of acute vulnerability, such as property disputes, criminal cases, or family matters — a verified national registry would be a critical consumer protection tool, potentially saving them from being defrauded by unqualified impostors.