A two-judge bench had blamed ‘frequent and uncalled for’ strikes for ‘obstructing access to justice’ and driving the high pendency of Indian courts.
New Delhi: The office-bearers of bar councils and associations are less than pleased with last week’s Supreme Court (SC) order calling for contempt action against them for lawyers’ strikes.
A bench of Justice U.U. Lalit and A.K. Goel had said “frequent and uncalled for strikes are obstructing access to justice”, the legal news website ‘Bar and Bench’ reported. Pointing out that its 15-year-old order barring lawyers’ strikes was being “flouted rampantly”, the court called for contempt action based on quarterly reports the government has been asked to compile.
Speaking to ThePrint, senior advocate and Bar Council of India chairman Manan Kumar Mishra criticised the judgment. “I don’t think that the bar is going to accept the verdict of the Supreme Court. We will avail of whatever remedies are available to us,” he said. “This will affect 13 to 14 lakh lawyers. We will go for a review before the Supreme Court,” he added.
In 2017, the apex court had asked the Law Commission to analyse all relevant aspects of the matter. In its 266th report, the panel arrived at the following conclusions:
- Courts in Uttar Pradesh were the worst hit by strikes, with an “alarming number” announced from 2011 to 2016.
- Of the 265 days/year UP’s district courts were meant to function, lawyers were on strike, on average, 115 days.
- In Dehradun, Uttarakhand, advocates struck work on 455 days between 2012 and 2016, averaging 91 days/year.
- The Ajmer district court in Rajasthan lost 118 days to strikes in 2014 alone; Jhalawar’s lost 146 days.
- Similar findings were arrived at regarding the district courts of Tamil Nadu, and the high courts of Madhya Pradesh and Odisha.
The commission, headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice B.S. Chauhan, also said in its report that it could not find “any reasonable justification for the strikes”.
“The reasons for strike call or abstinence from work varied from local, national to international issues, having no relevance to the working of the courts,” the commission wrote, listing some of the frivolous reasons strikes were called:
1) Amendments to Sri Lanka’s constitution.
2) The 2015 earthquake in Nepal.
3) To provide moral support to movements by social activists.
4) Heavy rains.
5) Shraadh.
‘Contempt notice against judges for presser’
The Punjab and Haryana Bar Council chairman, Lekh Raj Sharma, said he respected the Supreme Court judgment, but added that “advocates have all the rights to protest if they have genuine demands”.
“The contempt notice (sic) should also be applicable to the judges who went to the January press conference, leaving their job aside,” he added. Sharma was referring to the media conference called by four senior Supreme Court judges to highlight their concerns regarding case allocation under CJI Dipak Misra.
But there have been voices of support as well. Senior advocate and former Supreme Court Bar Association president Dushyant Dave said lawyers had “no business to go on strike”.
“I definitely support the Supreme Court’s move. Today, most bar associations go on strike on the flimsiest of grounds,” he added.
The former chairman of the Delhi Bar Council, K.K. Menon, said contempt action was a good idea. “If a strike is necessary, the Bar Council of India should go to the authorities first. If the authorities don’t listen, then they can go on strike for one day, not indefinitely,” he added.