New Delhi Bar Association :Election for 2008

They have put up a list of eligible voters in prominent places in our court compound. They are 2806- lawyers.
New Delhi Bar Association election is slated to be held on 11th of April 2008.
Canvassing is getting hectic day by day. Candidates are roaming chamber to chamber, seat to seat and scouring the lanes and bi-lanes of the compound like speciously lost ants, untiringly, wishing, saluting who ever they think is a lawyer with the refrains: “Bhupender Sharma for Secretary”, “Pradeep for member Executive sir”and as such. To show their support and strength the resourceful one are campaigning in large groups occasionally. The lesser underdogs are campaigning either alone or in groups of two or three. In some cases their colleagues are not lawyers. They are either their relatives or friends impersonating as lawyers.

Yesterday on the 2nd of April I accompanied Mr Bhupender Sharma to Bar Office where he filed his nomination for the post of Hony Secretary. He paid the fee of Rs. 450/-. We were 100 in number, the narrow lanes forcing us into an elongated crowd of chance procession.


The Bar Office, the library, the Internet cafe, the dispensary and the conference room is situated on the first floor above court No 7& 8 and the lock-up.

Every day around 6-7 bus loads of noisy prisoners are deposited in the court lock up from where each of them is escorted by special police constables in khakis with black badges on their shoulder, to courts where their cases are slated to be heard.
Mr. K.K. Manan and Mr. Ramesh Gupta are the most popular lawyer in our court. Both professionly and socio-politically active. While the former has a sort of don image and has a tendency to awe others the later has the general image of gentle man and intellectual.

There are many lawyers in our court who are not in a position to pay their yearly subscription of Rs.300/- The affluent lawyers are paying subscriptions on their behalf .This is a tradition in our Bar.

The flip side is that the some of the candidates contesting for the President and Secretary posts make un-regulated supply of liquor , eatables and in some cases a few of them go as far as making available prostitutes to those who they thing might garner votes for them.