Supreme Court on Monday said the public cannot be made to suffer due to lawyers’ strike as it threatened to suspend en masse members of 20 district bar associations in Odisha if they failed to call off their decision to boycott courts within 48 hours.
Taking serious view of an application filed by the Orissa high court demanding action to rein in the district bar association office bearers who had brought functioning of courts in 20 districts to a standstill with their frequent strike calls, a bench of justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and AS Oka said, “Public cannot be treated like this. This is ridiculous. At the end of the day, they are sufferers because of you.”
The Bar Council of India (BCI), which was requested last week by the top court to examine the issue, informed the bench that on November 13, order was issued suspending office bearers of 5 of the 20 district bar associations. Refusing to stay the said notices, the bench said, “Even if we have to suspend 200 odd lawyers, we will do it…Even if you suspend strike, we will not stay the notices. We want you to know the consequences of what you have done.”
The high court was represented in Court by senior advocate Arvind Datar and advocate Sibo Sankar Mishra pointing out that due to the frequent boycott of courts by lawyers, the cumulative working hours that was lost by the district courts was 2,14,176 hours from January 1 to September 30 this year.
“We expect full working of all bar associations by November 16 failing which BCI will proceed with further action against office bearers of all remaining bar associations. All office members and officer bearers of associations are put to notice that non-compliance will be treated as contempt and BCI shall take steps to cancel their licenses and any other steps.”
The district bar associations were represented by various lawyers who pointed out that they had remained away from the district courts for a variety of reasons ranging from setting up regional benches of high court, filling up of high court staff, death of lawyers or judicial officers, demand for more courts, crop insurance, enhancing welfare fund for lawyers to even petty issues such as heavy rainfall, scorching heat and floods.
The Court said, “Access to justice is the very foundation of the legal system. The legal fraternity is the instrument of access to justice to people at large. When the very instrument abstains from Court, casualty is the common people and common litigants who suffer. We will not countenance that.”
The same issue was brought to Court in February 2020 when the SC bench had taken strict view of the strike call by lawyers and taken an undertaking from the district bar associations to not go for strike. the HC pointed out that strike continued in flagrant violation of the SC order.
The HC further informed about an unfortunate incident in Khurda district in Bhubaneshwar last week where a lady judicial first class magistrate of Tangi was abused and threatened by the local bar association office bearers who were drunk and had stayed at the Court premises till late evening.
The state promised the top court to provide necessary security even as the Court said, “Such a conduct (of the lawyer) will disentitle anybody like this person to practice at the bar. We expect judicial officers at district level to work without fear or favour.”
Posting the matter to November 28, the Court directed the President and Secretary of the Joint Action Committee representing the 20 bar associations to remain present on the next date of hearing.
