Supreme Court angry with investigation agencies for sending summons to lawyers, took cognizance of the matter itself; hearing will be held

The Supreme Court has taken suo motu cognisance of the issue of issuance of notice and summons to the lawyers of the accused by the police and the investigating agencies. The case has been placed on hearing on July 14 in a three-judge bench led by Chief Justice BR Gavai.

Justice K. Vinod Chandran and NV Anjaria will also form part of the bench. This matter of sending summons or notices by the investigating agencies to the lawyers advising the accused came up when, in June last, the ED sent a summons to senior Supreme Court lawyers Arvind Dattar and Pratap Venugopal.

However, later on June 20, ED issued a circular and directed the investigating officers that no notice or summons would be sent to the lawyers. If this has to be done as an exception, then the approval of the ED Director will have to be taken first.

After this, while hearing a case from Gujarat on June 25, a bench of Supreme Court judges KV Vishwanathan and N. Kotiswar Singh had expressed concern over the incidents of summons being sent to the lawyers of the accused by the investigating agencies and the police. The court had indicated on the same day that it would consider the matter.

The bench had remarked that allowing the defense lawyers advising the parties in a case to be directly called by the investigating agencies, police would seriously undermine the autonomy of the legal profession and would even be a direct threat to the independence of the administration of justice.

The court had also set debatable questions. The court had said that two questions are debatable. First, when a person is associated with the party only as an advising lawyer, should the investigating agency, prosecution, or police directly call the lawyer.

And the second question is, suppose the agency has a case where the role of the person is not just that of a lawyer but something else, should they still issue a summons directly, or should judicial monitoring be prescribed for such an exceptional situation. The court said that both these issues need to be addressed on a broad basis because the ability of lawyers to discharge their professional duties honestly and fearlessly is paramount.