Women's panel wants model's former lawyer Rizwan Siddiqui banned from practising law

The Maharashtra State Women's Commission on Wednesday wrote a letter to the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa seeking cancellation of sanad (licence to practice law) of advocate Rizwan Siddiqui, who used to represent the model who has levelled allegations of rape against DIG Sunil Paraskar.

The letter, written by commission chairperson Susieben Shah, states that the commission has taken a "strict cognisance of the unethical behaviour of advocate Rizwan Siddiqui".

Siddiqui allegedly leaked various communication, including CCTV footage involving the model and Paraskar. The letter states that it amounted to privilege communications between the model and advocate and was leaked on social sites.

"You will appreciate, looking at the timing, the said leak was done with the sole intention of maligning the image of a woman complainant of Maharashtra and, therefore, I have to request the Bar Council to set a precedent that such professional misconduct is not repeated by any advocate of Maharashtra in future," reads the letter.

Advocate Asif Shaukat Qureshi, Bar Council chairman, told dna from Nagpur that they have received the letter and would look into it. "Since the letter is from chairperson of the women's commission seeking cancellation of an advocate's sanad, we will have to call a full house meeting. It will be done expeditiously," he added.

A full house is all the 25 elected members of the Bar Council across the state.