Report No. 72

3. Dr. Sapru's view.-

A factor which weighed with the Drafting Committee in putting a ban upon practice was the view expressed by Dr. Tej Bahadur Sapru, the doyen of the legal profession in India. According to Dr. Sapru, once a man accepted a judicial position he should on no account revert to the Bar. He referred, in this connection, to the English practice of never allowing a man to go back to the Bar once he had accepted a judicial appointment1. Dr. Sapru accordingly observed:

"I think the rule in future should be that any barrister or advocate, who accepts a seat on the Bench, shall be prohibited from resuming practice anywhere on retirement. I am also of the opinion that temporary or acting Judges do greater harm than permanent Judges, when after their seat2 on the Bench for a short period they revert to the Bar. A seat on the Bench gives them a pre-eminence over their colleagues and embarrasses the subordinate Judges who were at one time under their control and thus instead of their helping justice they act as a hindrance to free justice.

It is however said that the true remedy lies in increasing the pension of the Judges and allowing the Judges to secure some pension after short periods of office. I agree that this would be a very good ground for not permitting them to resume practice, but pension or no pension there is a long standing convention in England to the effect that no member of the Bar should do anything which gives rise to the impression that he has a pull over his opponent by reason of having held a judicial post."

1. Shiva Rao The Framing of India's Constitution, (1967), Vol. 4, pp. 172-173.

2. The word as quoted in Shiva Rao, Main Volume, p. 502 is "term".