Kapil Sibal File pictureThe Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to debar lawmakers from practising as advocates, saying MPs, MLAs and MLCs are not salaried employees of the government and therefore cannot be stopped from continuing in the legal profession. Chandrachud said the prohibitions mentioned in Section 49 applied only to those who were full-time salaried employees of a person, government, firm or corporation. “Indubitably, legislators cannot be styled or characterised as full-time salaried employees as such, much less of the specified entities. The court agreed that legislators were deemed to be public servants, but they enjoyed certain legal protection and were “certainly not” full-time salaried employees. By no standards, therefore, Rule 49 as a whole can be invoked and applied to the legislators,” Justice Khanwilkar added.

Source: The Telegraph September 25, 2018 21:33 UTC