Why it matters that the Bar Council of Kerala is elected, and the trust its Chairman heads

Background

The Kerala High Court has refused an interim plea that sought to keep a former Chairman of the Bar Council of Kerala away from a function held as Executive Trustee of an advocates academy trust. The Bar Council of a State is a body under the Advocates Act, 1961 and the court has treated its elected character as part of the democratic scheme of that law. The newly elected XIII Bar Council of the State has since been constituted. The court had earlier stayed what the Chairman of the Bar Council of India had ordered, namely a Limited Interim Authority for the State body. It held that putting a former Chairman, no longer an elected member, on that authority went prima facie against the democratic scheme of that law. The academy is provided for in section 2(ab), and the law behind it is the Kerala Advocates Welfare Fund Act, 1980. Its trust deed makes the Chairman of the Bar Council of Kerala for the time being its Executive Trustee, with a special rule for the first ten years.