New Delhi: In the process of preparing the guidelines to the bar investigating agencies to call the lawyers to give opinion to the customers, the Supreme Court said on Tuesday that the privilege of immunity from the prosecution is available to a lawyer as long as it acts as a legal businessman for a customer.An action was initiated after the Enforcement Directorate issued summons to two senior advocates and later withdrawn it, a bench of Chief Justice Bry and Vinod Chandran of Justice said, “We cannot ignore the fact that summons was issued to two senior advocates. We are only working as people.“The privilege of immunity from the prosecution has been provided to the lawyers to show, advise or give legal opinion to customers, like the approval provision under IPC. His actions are privileged if they are performed during their duties as a lawyer. If they themselves commit wrongdoing or commit crime, there is no protection from prosecution, “the CJI said.Senior Advocates Vikas Singh, Ranjit Kumar, Mukul Rohatgi, M Singhvi, as Nadakarni Amit Desai, Vijay Hansaria, Shob Alam and many others, flagged off the summons issued to Advocates and said that they would find bank accounts of their campus, which would find electronic devices. “Are we not taking things far away,” the CJI asked.Attorney General R Venkatarmani said that the government has already worked fast and issued instructions to all investigative agencies not to issue summons to lawyers for their profession related work. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that he agrees with everyone in the court that lawyers should not be called for their professional work.Mehta said that it would not be prudent to keep guidelines based on a unique violation for the court and to take precautions that it could prove to be response. “Agencies cannot ignore a lawyer, who is the director of a company under investigation for fraud transactions, gives an opinion for a commission of illegality. Just because he is a lawyer, he would not immune to prosecution for acts done as the company’s director,” SG said.Giving another example, he also said that a fugitive, who ran away from the country, told the agency that the documents demanded from him were available with a law firm and officials can take it from the law firm. “Should the agency not go into a legal firm to collect documents? Will it apply to the privilege of the lawyer?” SC asked and asked AG and SG to give their feedback on the suggestions made by SCBA, Scora and other lawyers by August 12.
