The right of Advocates of the Supreme Court to practise in High Courts under Section 2 of the Supreme Court Advocates (Practice in High Courts) Act, 1951 is subject to the local rules and regulations of each High Court, and does not confer on them any rights which are not possessed by Advocates of that Court.

( 1 ) THIS Rule under Article 226 of the Constitution India was issued at the instance of two petitioners, one of whom may, for all practical purposes, be left out off account. The first petitioner is one Mr. Aswini Kumar Ghose who, besides being an Advocate of this Court entitled to practise both on the Original and the Appellate Side, is also an Advocate of the Supreme Court. The second petitioner is one Jnanendra Nath Chatterjee who is the defendant in a suit pending on the Original Side of this Court and on whose behalf the first petitioner made an attempt to file a "warrant of power and appearance". It is alleged that the said warrant was at first received by an Assistant in the Suit Registry Department, but was subsequently returned by the first respondent, who is the Suit Registrar in the Order Department of the Original Side, with the endorsement that it "must be filed by an Attorney of this Court under High Court Rules and Orders, Original Side and not by an Advocate". That allegation has not been denied.

( 2 ) THE second respondent to the petition is the Registrar, Original Side. Against him it is not alleged that he interfered with the first petitioner in any way in his attempt to file a warrant of appearance on the present occasion, but it is said that he did so on a previous occasion when he refused to accept a warrant filed by the first petitioner in a Company matter and also that he, by certain letters, communicated certain administrative decisions of this Court taken on an application made by another Advocate of the Supreme Court. Those allegations also have not been denied.

( 3 ) FROM what has been stated above, it is clear that the real matter sought to be agitated in the present proceeding is the alleged right of the first petitioner to 'act' in the second petitioner's suit and that the latter has joined in the petition only as a person interested in the establishment of that right.

( 4 ) THE Rule was issued by Bose, J. , but as the learned Judge thought that the matter could be more advantageously heard by a larger Bench, he subsequently made a report to the Chief Justice to that effect under Chapter V, Rule 2 of the Original Side Rules. Thereupon the present Special Bench was constituted for hearing the matter.

( 5 ) ALTHOUGH the terms in which the Rule was issued are extremely wide, in the course of his argument before us, the first petitioner, who appeared in person, sought to make only a short and limited point. The Rule requires the respondents to show cause why an order or direction in the nature of an appropriate writ should not be issued for the enforcement of a fundamental right of the first petitioner, "to wit, the right to practise, that is, to act and plead on the Original Side of this Court", as conferred on him by Act XVIII (18) of 1951 and guaranteed by Article 19 (1) (g) of the Constitution of India, as amended by Section 3 (1) (b) of the Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951 and why consequential orders should not be made, declaring the right of the first petitioner "to act as well as plead without intervention of any attorney on' behalf of his clients on the Original Side of this Court", directing the warrant of appearance to be accepted and "upholding the right" of the second petitioner "to be defended. . . . . . . . . . . . by qualified empowered counsel of his choice". The variety of the consequential orders prayed for presents no complications, for if the first petitioner succeeded in establishing the right claimed by him, they would have all to be made, from whichever of the two alleged sources the right might be shown to flow. But as regards the source, the argument addressed to us made no reference to the alleged fundamental right and, in my opinion, the first petitioner was well-advised in avoiding it. Fundamental rights are rights which all citizens of India have by virtue of being such citizens. It could certainly not be said that any citizen of India had