:dateline:Nearly a third of all lawyers in India are �fake,� the head of the country�s legal regulator has said.
Manan Kumar Mishra, the chairman of the Bar Council of India (BCI), made the startling revelation during a speech in Chennai, the capital of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, on Saturday, the Press Trust of India reports.
�Thirty percent of all lawyers are fake, who either hold fraudulent degrees or are nonpracticing persons and 20% of those who sport lawyers� robes do not have proper degrees,� Mishra said. �Fake lawyers and nonpracticing law graduates are degrading the standards of the profession.�
The spread of �fake� lawyers, Mishra added, was also causing disruptions in the legal system. �Strikes on petty issues have become a regular phenomenon due to such persons,� he said, �We are serious about this and will take stiff action.�
Mishra�s statement comes on the heels of the arrest last month�of a former law minister in the provincial government in New Delhi following a BCI complaint alleging that he had falsely claimed to be a law graduate.
And earlier this year, police in Tamil Nadu busted an elaborate scam�to sell counterfeit certificates for legal and engineering courses. The illegal operation only came to light when three would-be lawyers applied to register�with the state�s bar association, which discovered that their credentials were in fact fake.
