Bar on practise by foreign lawyers

CHENNAI: Foreign law firms or foreign lawyers cannot practise law in India either on the litigation or non-litigation side, unless they fulfil requirements of the Advocates Act (stipulating the gesture of reciprocation) and the Bar Council of India, the Madras High Court ruled on Tuesday.The first bench comprising Chief Justice M Y Eqbal and Justice T S Sivagnanam gave the ruling while disposing of a PIL by advocate AK Balaji seeking action against certain foreign law firms and lawyers, who were illegally practising law in India, and to restrain them from doing so. The bench, however, accepting the submissions of Additional Solicitor General M Ravindran and Central Government Standing Counsel P Chandrasekaran, observed that there was no bar either in the Advocates Act or the Rules for foreign law firms or lawyers to visit India for a temporary period on a ‘fly in and fly out’ basis for giving legal advice to their clients in India regarding foreign law or their own system of law and on diverse international legal issues. Having regard to the object of International Commercial Arbitration introduced in the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, the bench said foreign lawyers could not be debarred from coming to India and conducting arbitration proceedings on disputes arising out of a contract on international commercial arbitration.