Introduction to Advocates Act, 1961

Before 1961, what you were called depended entirely on which court you stood in and which Act happened to regulate it that decade — barrister, attorney, vakil, pleader, mukhtar. After 1961, you are one thing: an Advocate, on one common roll, entitled to walk into any court in India, from the smallest magistrate's court to the Supreme Court. This Act is the destination every earlier topic in this module has been travelling towards.

In two minutes

The Advocates Act, 1961, built on the All India Bar Committee's 1951 report and the Fifth Law Commission's recommendations, abolished every earlier distinction between classes of legal practitioner, created a single class of Advocates on a common roll, and established the Bar Council of India and autonomous State Bar Councils to regulate the profession itself.

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