JUDGMENT

KRISHNA IYER, J.:—These appeals have filled us as much with deep sorrow as with pained surprise. The story of the alleged professional misconduct and the insensitivity of the disciplinary authority to aberrant professional conduct have been the source of our distress, as we will presently explain, after unfurling the factual canvas first.

2. The first chapter of the litigation in this Court related to the standing of the State Bar Council to appeal to this Court, under Sec. 38 of the Advocates Act, 1961 (the Act, for short) against an appellate decision of the Disciplinary Tribunal appointed by the Bar Council of India. This Court upheld the competence to appeal, thus leading us to the present stage of disposing of the eight cases on merits.

3. The epileptic episodes- what other epithet can adequately express the solicitation circus dramatised by the witnesses as practiced by the panel of advocate-respondents before us ?- make us blush in the narration. 244 For, after all, do we not all together belong to the inner republic of bench and bar ? The putative delinquents are lawyers practising in the criminal courts in Bombay City. Their profession ordains a high level of ethics as much in the means as in the ends. Justice cannot be attained without the stream being pellucid throughout its course and that is of great public concern, not merely professional care. Briefly expressed, these practitioners, according to testimony recorded by the State Disciplinary Tribunal, positioned themselves at the entrance to the Magistrates Courts, watchful of the arrival of potential litigants. At sight they rushed towards the clients in an ugly scrimmage to snatch the briefs, to lay claim to the engagements even by physical fight to undercut fees and by this unedifying exhibition ,sometimes carried even into the Bar Library ,solicited and secured work for themselves. If these charges were true, any member of the Bar with elementary ethics in his bosom would be outraged at his brethren s conduct and yet ,in reversal of the State Disciplinary Committee s finding , the appellant Tribunal at the national level appeared to have entered a verdict based on three point formula, that this conduct, even if true, was after all, an attempt to solicit practice and did not cross the border line of misconduct. The Bar Council of State of Maharashtra ( the appellant before us) and the Bar Council of India which is a party-respondent ,have expressed consternation at this view of the law of professional misconduct and we share this alarm. Were this view right ,it is difficult to call the legal profession noble. Were this understanding of deviant behaviour sound ,there is little to distinguish between railway porters and and legal practitioners although we do not mean to hurt the former and have mentioned the past practice, to drive home our present point. We do not wish to dilate further on the evidence in so far as it concerns each of the respondent-advocates in view of certain developments which we will presently notice. There are eight cases but we are relieved from dissecting the evidence against most of them for reasons which we will hopefully and shortly state.

4. The Bar Council of Maharashtra by its resolution No, 29, dated August 8, 1964 considered the complaint received from the High Court against one Kelawala and 15 other Advocates among whom are those charged with professional misconduct and covered by the present appeals, under Sec. 35 (1) of the Act and presumably having reason to believe that the professional misconduct alleged required a further probe referred the case to its disciplinary committee. This procedure is in due compliance with Sec. 35 (1) of the Act and, a1though the respondent in C.A. 1467/74 (A. K. Doshi) has contended that the resolution of the Bar Council does not ex facie disclose that it had reason to believe that the advocates involved were guilty of professional misconduct, we see no merit in it. The requirement of