REFUGEE

Madurai, Dec 14 About 1,000 lawyers in Tamil Nadu face deregistration by the state bar council as they had obtained their law degree after completing post graduation through Open University without regular basic degree.

"About 1,000 lawyers may be deregistered and asked to surrender their enrolment certificate (EC)," an official of the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu (BCT) said here recently.

The identification process of lawyers who got their PG degree from Open Universities was on and the BCT had already sent letters to some of them cancelling their enrolment.

The Madras High Court had last year declared as invalid the post-graduation degrees obtained without basic degrees (through regular university) and 12 years of school education.

Dismissing appeals, the Supreme Court had recently upheld the High Court judgement following which the BCT decided to deregister lawyers without the basic degree.