PRAVEEN KUMAR Vs. STATE OF BIHAR WITH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) HEARD the parties.

(2.) THROUGH MJC No. 1977 of 2009 a prayer has been made by respondents no. 3 and 4 of CWJC No. 1580 of 2009 to modify the order dated 13.4.2009 passed in that writ petition so as to read in the third line from the end of the order 'November 2009 ' in place of 'August 2009. ' and then grant further time till December 2009 for completing the election of Bihar State Bar Council. In support of the said prayer learned Advocate General has submitted that the draft electoral rolls were to be finalized by the end of June 2009 as mentioned in that order but draft electoral roll published on 14/15.6.2009 inviting objection by 20.7.2009 suffered from some major defects and, therefore, final electoral roll has not been published so far. The time for objection to the draft voter list was till 20.7.2009 and hence, he has assured the Court that the final electoral roll shall be published by 20.8.2009. Thereafter he has drawn our attention to provisions in proviso to Rule 4(2) contained in Chapter -I of Part -Ill of Bar Council of India Rules relating to State Council. That proviso requires that after the publication of electoral roll the elections are to be fixed for a day after not less than 120 clear days from the date of publication of electoral rolls. In view of aforesaid requirement of the rule which appears to be mandatory, it has been submitted by learned Advocate General that elections can be held on any appropriate date depending upon the date of actual publication of final electoral rolls between 15th December, 2009 and 15th January, 2010.

(3.) ON behalf of the writ petitioner the prayer was opposed and it was submitted that on the earlier occasion the time for holding the elections as per prayer on behalf of the Bihar State Bar Council was September 2009 but the Court fixed the time as August 2009 for concluding the elections. He also highlighted certain provisions in the rules requiring the Secretary to make preparations for holding elections in time.