Delhi HC moved against BCD making ID with NCR address compulsory for enrolment

New Delhi, April 20 An advocate has filed a plea in the Delhi High Court challenging the recent decision of the Bar Council of Delhi (BCD) making Aadhar and Voter Identity Card bearing address of Delhi-NCR mandatory for enrolment with it.

Calling the BCD's decision arbitrary and discriminatory, the petition by advocate Rajani Kumari, who is a Delhi University alumna and resident of Bihar, challenges its notice issued on April 13, stating that lawyers proposing to get enrolled with the BCD will have to produce their Aadhaar and Voter ID cards showing Delhi or the NCR as their place of residence.

After hearing the matter in brief, Justice Prathiba M. Singh asked the petitioner to make the Bar Council of India (BCI) a party to the plea and listed it for further consideration on May 2.

The BCD has stated in its notice that it is mandatory for the fresh law graduates seeking to enrol in the national capital to attach their Aadhaar and Voter ID card copies bearing an address in Delhi/NCR and lack of which will lead to no enrolment.

According to Rajani Kumari, the council's decision would act like a barrier for law graduates coming from different parts of the country and looking to practise law in the capital for better prospects.

"The requirement of Aadhaar Card and Voter ID Card with the address of Delhi or NCR discriminates against those law graduates who do not have an address in Delhi or NCR. This creates an arbitrary classification between law graduates based on their residential address, which is a violation of Article 14," the plea contended.

It stated that the blanket restriction on enrolment with BCD lacks intelligible differentia as to how a law graduate belonging to Agra having and graduated from National Law School, Bengaluru is unequally placed with one domiciled in Meerut.

"The impugned notification is completely silent about the objective it seeks to achieve from the classification stipulated therein," the plea stated.

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