Singhvi et al: Are they politicians first or lawyers? -Governance Now

Singhvi et al: Are they politicians first or lawyers?

GN Bureau | October 5, 2010

Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who is a Congress spokesperson as well as lawyer, has withdrawn from a case in the Kerala High Court, in which he was representing a lottery distributor charged with irregularities. His move came after pressure from the party leadership.

This is not a one-off incident. More and more lawyers are getting into politics. Both the Congress and BJP have a battery of lawyers holding key organisational posts. As they also continue their law practice, a “clash of interests” is not rare. Home minister P Chidambaram reportedly represented Vedanta before the Bombay High Court in 2003. While as lawyer, he is not expected to take a moral position, as a political leader he would be. Arun Jaitley was criticised when in 2005 he decided to represent Ketan Parekh, the alleged stock market manipulator – more so because he represented Gujarat in the Rajya Sabha and the investors in the state had lost millions in the scam.

So, should we expect lawyers-turned-politicians to behave as politicians first or as lawyers when they are practising law?

Comments

Other News

What really happened in ‘The Scam That Shook a Nation’?

The Scam That Shook a Nation By Prakash Patra and Rasheed Kidwai HarperCollins, 276 pages, Rs 399 The 1970s were a

Report of India’s G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure released

The final ‘Report of India’s G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure’ by ‘India’s G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure for Economic Transformation, Financial Inclusion and Development’ was released in New Delhi on Monday. The Task Force was led by the

How the Great War of Mahabharata was actually a world war

Mahabharata: A World War By Gaurang Damani Sanganak Prakashan, 317 pages, Rs 300 Gaurang Damani, a Mumbai-based el

Budget expectations, from job creation to tax reforms…

With the return of the NDA to power in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, all eyes are now on finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s full budget for the FY 2024-25. The interim budget presented in February was a typical vote-on-accounts, allowing the outgoing government to manage expenses in

How to transform rural landscapes, design 5G intelligent villages

Futuristic technologies such as 5G are already here. While urban users are reaping their benefits, these technologies also have a potential to transform rural areas. How to unleash that potential is the question. That was the focus of a workshop – “Transforming Rural Landscape:

PM Modi visits Rosatom Pavilion at VDNKh in Moscow

Prime minister Narendra Modi, accompanied by president Vladimir Putin, visited the All Russian Exhibition Centre, VDNKh, in Moscow Tuesday. The two leaders toured the Rosatom Pavilion at VDNKh. The Rosatom pavilion, inaugurated in November 2023, is one of the largest exhibitions on the histo