PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND ACCOUNTING SYSTEM

RESPONSE PAPER- 2
G.B.Pranav Sriram
BA0150031

Yes, I completely agree with what Mr. Raju Ramachandran said. Because in India, we have
rigid rules which are governing the conduct of lawyers or rigid code of ethics which
governing the conduct of advocates in national as well as transnational level. Which creates a
huge drawback for our Indian lawyers, in case if they have to compete with lawyers from
other jurisdictions, it will be more difficult to our lawyers, because their code of ethics will be
more liberal than ours. So, competing with them will be more difficult to our Indian lawyers.

India is a country having over 1.2 million lawyers. So, the code of ethics here to oversees or
regulate the conduct of the advocates in India is rigid in sense, which becomes as drawback
for our Indian lawyers to compete with other lawyers from another jurisdiction. Because, the
litigating lawyers have attended the court, but in case of the transactional lawyers, their works
mostly depends on researching, preparing and reviewing the documents that bring individuals
and companies together: from contracts for large corporate mergers and acquisitions to the
closing documents for the purchase of a house. The laws governing the conduct of
transactional lawyers are liberal in sense, which gives them an advantage. Some lawyers help
bring people together, others help break them apart – that’s the best way to describe the
difference between these two largest classes of lawyers1.

For example, in the case of Bhopal gas leak tragedy, due to lack of transactional laws as well
as quality lawyers in our country. There is no concept of strict liability. Mr. Warren Anderson
owner of Union Carbide Company Ltd said that “it was fault of the Union carbide India ltd,
not mine”. So, since there is no concept of piercing the corporate veil, they had to release Mr.
Warren Anderson from the case. But we learned from it, we changed the laws to make sure
that such things won’t happen again.

What I am trying to say is that there should be code of ethics liberal manner which governs
our Indian lawyers in matter of transactional level. For example: In matter of Advertising by
legal profession in India is prohibited, only in online websites, there to so many restrictions.
But in USA, there is no restriction, but there is regulatory body which governsthese conducts
of such Advertising by legal professionals. These kinds of rigid rules in India turned into a

1
http://prelaw.umass.edu/topics/transactional_vs_litigation
 PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND ACCOUNTING SYSTEM

burden for our lawyers. Which makes Indian lawyer incompetent or sometimes
disadvantaged as the legal system that is present in our nation is not sufficient. We do not
have the necessary laws in place to facilitate the growth of our nation. The presence of
inadequate laws has not only allowed MNCs to siphon huge amounts of money overseas but
in some cases has also made it much difficult for companies to operate within our
jurisdiction. The Indo Mauritius DTAA is one of the best examples of why we need to have
proper legal mechanisms in place to ensure that companies can operate freely within the
framework provided by law. One of the main drawbacks of the Make in India schemes as
well as the existing income tax laws is redtapism.

The above mentioned reasons clearly elucidate the reasons why India needs a proper code of
ethics for transactional law.