Though it is corona time and hence everything else is eclipsed by the scale of the threat it is, we have one community that is actually more threatened and is slowly waking up to a realisation that their world is also going to change, and for worse.

While the world was busy with corona, on 17^th March 2020, in the matter of Council Of Architecture vs Mr. Mukesh Goyal, the wise bench of Hon’Ble Dr. Chandrachud and Hemant Gupta restated the obvious that various courts have been telling the Council Of Architect on a twenty year long suicide mission that all that Architects Act, 1972 can protect on your behalf is your right to use the word “architect” as a title but nothing else. In short, anyone can do architecture.

As someone who has watched the antics of CoA since ages, whenever CoA struts into a court in a three piece suit (mostly stolen from various engineers) I get a very amusing visual image that I feel describes what Supreme Court did recently in the aforementioned case.

CoA went back wearing its three piece suit, this time audaciously to the honourable apex court of the nation, but as predicted accurately by me innumerable time in my past jaunts on this subject, the learned court has taken even the kachhchha away from architects.

As CoA has come out of the Supreme Court with nothing but a fig leaf of a word to protect its modesty, I am really worried about its aftermath for the sake of one large but invisible group of young Indians, i.e. freshly qualified architects who have studied for five years in good faith and are now left with a title that provides nothing much (other than some exclusivity in government jobs).

Even though all is lost (as this is a Supreme Court ruling), as luck would have it and CoA has a rare proactive practicing architect at helm as a president, so I still have some hope, provided good sense can prevail in the end.

The problem with architects is that they are really good with words (very often even better than what they are with professional practice, as some of the best schools of architecture have proven), so they find wonderfully worded explanations. So, every time you have an adverse court order, the best that architectural community can offer as a response would be a long well crafted story of an explanation of how they have won, regardless of whatever the court ruling may be.

Most often an old and really successful (thanks to being born with a silver spoon or having inherited a practice) architect would pen a long rambling response talking in line of “So What! Let it be merit driven market! Who on earth will go to an engineer to get a building designed?!”

After that or some other tokenism, the community would go back to drink black coffee and discuss how to stop the central vista project or whatever is the flavour of the season amongst well-bearded gents and ethnic wearing ladies.

As this has happened far too often, and as someone who understands how hard it is for a young kid from humble background to set up an architectural practice, this time I am changing the trajectory and instead of asking architects to unite, will request Supreme Court to intervene.

Yes, you have very aptly taken the three piece suit from architects, but please return the kachhchha of architecture, if not the original, one that is stitched by you.

While CoA has been making a legal mess of things, the kids who have earned a professional qualification can’t be made to pay for CoA’s absurd efforts to usurp the turf of engineering from engineers.

The nation needs a statutorily recognised professional that protects human interest in the massive and public-impacting real estate and construction sector. That is why the parliament of the nation went to the length of enacting Architects Act, 1972.

The act may be faulty and attempts to misuse it by CoA are evident, but that doesn’t mean that we can overlook the fact that it was enacted for a purpose that parliament recognised, and that is that we need architects with exclusive role.

My humble request is to appoint an empowered expert committee to relook at the issue, and if possible, separate out the professions or architecture and engineering and ask parliament to enact a more comprehensive Construction Professionals Act.

Please don’t make young architects to pay for the sins of their professional fathers. Just because the fraternity has never united to uplift the cause of the profession, a nation can’t let go of it completely.