If lawyers are free to draft exaggerated or false legal notices without consequences, how is justice supposed to survive?
That question naturally leads to another, more uncomfortable one.
**Who is supposed to hold such conduct accountable?**
In theory, the answer is clear. Bar Councils exercise disciplinary powers *pro bono publico*. Their role is not to protect advocates from scrutiny, but to protect professional standards and public confidence in the justice system.
In practice, the picture is far less reassuring.
For decades, complaints of professional misconduct have often been disposed of through non-speaking or opaque orders. This is not a recent concern, nor an emotional one. The Supreme Court flagged this problem long ago, including in the **Nandlal Barot** case, where even an advocate penalised without a reasoned order had to approach the Supreme Court after failing to obtain relief within the Bar Council system itself.
That fact matters.
If an advocate had to struggle to obtain procedural fairness, the position of an ordinary litigant is far more fragile. Most citizens do not have the time, resources, or stamina to pursue accountability all the way to the highest court.
Despite repeated judicial emphasis on **reasoned orders, transparency, and accountability**, the same patterns continue. Complaints are closed without explanations. There is no publicly accessible data showing how many misconduct complaints are filed, how many succeed, or what standards are actually applied.
To understand whether this was perception or reality, I chose the least confrontational route available to a citizen. I sought basic, aggregated information through the RTI Act. Not opinions. Not justifications. Just data.
What followed was telling. Requests were declined, ignored, or deflected. As a result, it remains impossible to form even a high-level, objective picture of how disciplinary powers are exercised in practice.
This brings us back to the starting point.
When a baseless legal notice is sent, the immediate harm is personal.
But when the system meant to regulate such conduct resists transparency, the harm becomes institutional.
This is not about one lawyer or one notice. It is about whether professional accountability exists in substance, or only on paper.
I am not seeking intervention or advocacy. I am simply placing these facts on record. Because when accountability mechanisms operate in silence, public trust does not collapse loudly. It erodes quietly.
And that erosion affects everyone who relies on the justice system to act fairly, not cleverly.
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