New Delhi: Lawyers practising in the Andhra Pradesh High Court are deeply divided over the issue of a sitting judge harshly rebuking a young advocate and orally directing his custody for 24 hours earlier this week. A purported clip of the rebuke has gone viral.
The Andhra Pradesh High Court Advocates Association issued a statement Wednesday saying the matter had been amicably resolved through their intervention, and both sides had “moved on”.
However, the younger members of the Bar wrote to the advocates association saying they were deeply disappointed in the statements of the latter, and were in complete solidarity with the young lawyer rebuked by the judge.
In its statement addressed to the Chief Justice of the HC, the advocates association had appealed to not escalate the matter. It stated that the incident took place Monday during proceedings before Justice Tarlada Rajasekhar Rao, and had caused immediate concern within the legal fraternity. It further asked the CJ to set up a committee with judges to improve the relations between the Bar and the Bench.
“What circulated online does not tell the complete story—in particular, it does not reflect the fact that the matter had already been resolved by the time it spread on social media,” the AP HC Advocates Association stated, adding that the relationship between judges and lawyers is built with care and mutual respect over many years.
The advocate himself has chosen not to pursue the matter, the lawyers’ body added.
Hours after the statement was put out, a group of about 300 young lawyers of the HC issued another statement saying that the earlier one did not reflect their voice.
Since the Bar and Bench must equally respect each other, no advocate deserves to be threatened with judicial custody for placing the file down loudly, let alone a fresh member of the Bar, they stated.
“One must question themselves as to where the line is drawn to exercise unbridled power? Is the response of the bench proportional?” they asked.
Responding to the statement made by the advocates association that the matter had been amicably resolved, the younger lawyers said: “We fail to fathom what could have been an amicable settlement pertaining to the incident.”
According to the younger lawyers, one of the elected AP Bar Council members had also suggested at the time that the young advocate kneel down and be slapped, if need be. They said that making him stand in court till evening was also not an amicable settlement.
Finally, their statement said the young advocates were only expressing themselves in good faith, and that such incidents needed to be condemned. The court should have responded and behaved with dignity, and educated the counsel, it added.
“We are painfully aware that the present letter is not an outcome for the isolated incident but instead of the systematic practice prevalent in courts of degrading and humiliating the counsel,” they asserted, adding that younger lawyers are often left to fend for themselves and their lives are already hard.
Incidents like this lead to great trauma for young members, who enter the profession with great enthusiasm, energy and hope, it said.
The executive committee of the bar association had passed a resolution and statement in a tearing hurry, the younger lawyers stated, reiterating that the association’s statement, widely circulated, was not reflective of the views of the members of the Bar.
Disagreeing with the advocates’ association, the younger lawyers also sought a committee to inquire into the matter of the Bar Council member’s suggestion that the junior lawyer kneel before the judge.
They also sought full footage of the incident along with complete records, and a discussion between lawyers at the high court on the problems faced by them.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
Also Read: Judging a joke: How courts are navigating free speech space in age of social media