NEW DELHI: Responding to Bar Council of India (BCI) Co-Chairman YR Sadashiva Reddy’s demand for his resignation, BCI Chairman and BJP MP Manan Kumar Mishra said Reddy had been his political opponent and was no longer associated with the Council.Speaking to the media, Manan Kumar Mishra, “Sadashiv Reddy was a member of the Bar Council of India, but he is no longer associated with it. He is not a member of the State Bar Council and has not contested its election. He has been my political opponent throughout. Even when he was a member of the Council, he opposed me on many issue.”Earlier, Sadashiv Reddy, a senior advocate and BCI Co-Chairman, had demanded Mishra’s immediate resignation, alleging irregularities in appointments, diversion of Council funds, financial dealings involving law colleges and other governance issues.In a letter to Mishra, Reddy sought an independent inquiry into the allegations and asked him to resign immediately or within 15 days of receiving the letter.“The Bar of this country deserves better than what it is presently receiving from its own Council. I ask you to allow it that opportunity,” Reddy said towards the conclusion of his letter.Reddy also sought a Special Meeting of the BCI, a special audit of the Council and BCI Trust PEARL-First, and an immediate halt to contributions, donations or payments from law colleges, universities or their managements.He listed eight grounds for seeking Mishra’s resignation, including the BCI’s handling of the recent NALSAR University of Law controversy.Reddy alleged that the BCI chairman’s office had directed that the 2026 graduating batch of NALSAR not be enrolled following an episode involving students expressing an opinion related to their convocation. He said the decision was taken without being placed before the BCI or discussed by the Council.“I was not consulted. To the best of my knowledge, the Council as a body was not consulted”, he says.Reddy said the direction was withdrawn within hours following criticism and that Mishra later issued a letter expressing regret. He claimed the episode had seriously damaged the BCI’s standing.“The point is that the office of Chairman was used to threaten an entire graduating batch of law students — young men and women with no power and no voice — with exclusion from the profession, as a reprisal for having held an opinion. That single act, in my respectful but firm view, has done more damage to the standing of this Council than anything else in its history, and it is by itself sufficient ground for you to demit office”, the letter says.Among his other allegations, Reddy questioned appointments to the BCI establishment, claiming they were made without advertisements, selection committee proceedings or comparative merit lists. He also alleged that several employees were connected to Mishra or his family.“A striking proportion of the staff are persons connected to you personally, several of them being members of, or related to, your own family”, he says.Reddy also questioned the transfer of Rs 150 crore from the BCI to BCI Trust PEARL-First. He questioned the manner in which the new Trust was created and said BCI members had not been shown its Trust Deed.Another allegation concerned complaints that law colleges seeking approval or renewal were being asked to contribute to PEARL-First. Reddy said the alleged amounts ranged from Rs 25 lakh to Rs 50 lakh and up to Rs 1 crore.“It is not a licence to raise funds”, Reddy says.He argued that a regulator accepting money from entities it regulates would undermine its authority.Reddy also alleged that members of Mishra’s family held key positions in institutions established under the BCI and its Trust. He questioned factionalism within State Bar Councils and criticised Mishra’s continued tenure as chairman since 2012, including his re-election in 2025.“An elected office that has one occupant for fourteen years has ceased, in any real sense, to be an elected office” he says.Reddy also referred to protests by advocates demanding Mishra’s resignation and alleged a wider loss of confidence in the BCI leadership.“When the regulator of a profession is publicly repudiated by the profession it regulates, by the students it is meant to nurture, and by the courts before which it appears, the question of its Chairman’s continuance is no longer a matter of personal preference. It is a question of institutional survival”, he says,Apart from seeking Mishra’s resignation, Reddy called for a special audit of the BCI and BCI Trust PEARL-First from the Trust’s registration to date by an independent firm empanelled with the CAG. He also sought publication of the audit report and the complete staff position on the BCI website.Reddy said he had no personal animosity towards Mishra and had served alongside him for a decade.“There are able persons in this Council capable of restoring it. Standing down now, of your own accord, is the one course still open to you that would be to your credit”, the letter read.
