Compliance & the legal frame for Askadvocates.in

Bar Council of India — Rule 36

Indian advocates are barred from soliciting work or advertising under BCI Rule 36 (under §49(1)(c) of the Advocates Act 1961). In 2008, BCI added a carve-out permitting advocates to furnish factual website information: name, address, contact, enrollment number and state bar, bar associations, academic and professional qualifications, and areas of practice (without using the word "specialisation").

Askadvocates.in lives strictly inside this carve-out. We display only the factual information advocates are permitted to publish. We do not sell "featured" placement, run paid lead packs, or display star ratings or client testimonials.

What we earn money from

• Paid Q&A. Users pay the platform for an information service; the platform routes the question to a verified advocate who is paid for the labour of answering.
• Consultation booking service fee.A flat ₹100 charged to users for the booking technology (LiveKit video, scheduling, escrow, dispute infra). The advocate's professional fee is paid directly to the advocate via Razorpay Route.
• User Premium membership.Subscription for users that bundles allowance of paid Q&A and document reviews.

Compliance with other laws

• IT Act 2000 & Intermediary Rules 2021 — we publish T&C, Privacy, and Grievance Officer details prominently.
• DPDPA 2023 — granular consent, data minimisation, right-to-access / -correction / -erasure.
• GST — 18% on platform fees; legal services to individuals are otherwise exempt, B2B reverse charge.

Detailed engineering notes: docs/04-compliance-india.md in the repository.