Governor, SC judge, law minister to attend advocates’ association centenary celebration
2 min readPATNA: Bihar governor Satya Pal Malik, Supreme Court Justice Navin Sinha, Patna high court Chief Justice Rajendra Menon, union minister of law and justice Ravi Shankar Prasad, Advocate General Lalit Kishore and several other eminent dignitaries would attend a special programme at Bapu Sabhagar in the city on Friday which is organised by the state government to observe completion of 100 years of Advocates’ Association of Patna high court.
Association’s president and Patna high court senior advocate Yogesh Chandra Verma said that Dr Rajendra Prasad was among the founder members of the association who later became the first president of independent India.
He said that the programme, which would start at 5pm, would be inaugurated by the governor.
“For initial one year, it was known as Waqeel’s Association which was changed to Advocates’ Association in 1917. The association had come into existence even before the Patna high court first sitting took place on March 1, 1916,” he said adding it is among the oldest advocate’s association in the country.
“The governor would inaugurate the programme which is completely funded by the state government’s art, culture and youth department,” Verma said.
He said that the association till now has given two Chief Justice of India (CJI) namely BP Singh and LM Sharma. “Apart from the CJIs, the association have produced at least 40 judges for higher judiciary from the country and six advocate generals,” Sharma said.
Sharma said that at present there are at least 7,500 high court advocates in the association. “While earlier, those from only elite section of the society were members, now advocates from every strata of the society are members. Almost 70 advocates are dalits at present,” Verma said.
Referring to a Patna high court’s judgement of 1926 that “females are not persons so they could not be association’s member”, Verma said that now 200 female advocates are also in the association with change in time and society.
Courtesy: TNN
