A Division Bench of the Madras High Court on Monday stayed the operation of a single judge’s June 22 order directing the Madras Bar Association (MBA) to distribute applications for membership to all interested practising lawyers in the High Court, and admit them as members without discriminating on the basis of caste, gender, religion, economic status and personal as well as political affiliations and without reference to its bylaws.
Justices S.S. Sundar and K. Rajasekar granted the interim stay on a writ appeal preferred by MBA and listed the appeal for final hearing on July 14. The judges were of the prima facie view that the single judge ought to have referred the case for hearing by a Division Bench since the 2021 High Court Rules require every case in which the Registrar General of the High Court was a party to be beard by a Division Bench.
The Bench led by Justice Sundar said the single judge had failed to consider that the writ petition filed by advocate Elephant G. Rajendran in 2012 had levelled certain allegations of discrimination against a particular senior member of the MBA, who had not been made a respondent to the writ petition. Though the senior member had died in 2021, the single judge had gone ahead and issued a slew of directions against the MBA.
Since the issue involved several factual disputes including the vicarious liability that could be imposed upon the association for an alleged act committed by one of its members and the need to prove such an act, the Bench said, such issues could be decided only during the final hearing of the case, and decided to stay the single judge’s order till the disposal of the appeal.
