Photo: Ramesh lalwani / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Lawyers in Delhi’s district courts will stay off work indefinitely, their coordinating bar body said on Tuesday, after a day-long strike over the alleged conduct of a police officer in Shahdara. The advocates want Assistant Commissioner of Police Manasvi Vashishta and the station house officer (SHO) of Shahdara police station suspended while an impartial inquiry is carried out.
The decision was taken at a video-conference meeting of the Coordination Committee of All District Courts Bar Associations of Delhi on Tuesday, following a circular it had issued late on Monday. Lawyers at courts including Patiala House, Saket and Rouse Avenue abstained from judicial work through the day, according to bar office-bearers.
How the dispute began
According to the committee’s circular, the row traces back to an alleged assault in which advocate Lalit Bansal suffered a serious head injury, leading to an FIR at Shahdara police station. On the evening of October 23, a group of lawyers went to the station to press for action against the people named in that case, who were present there at the time.
The bar body says the ACP and the SHO assured the lawyers that the accused would be arrested. The next day, the advocates learnt that the accused had apparently been let go. When they returned to raise the matter, the circular alleges, the ACP displayed his revolver and threatened the lawyers present. There was no immediate response from the police to the allegation. Bar leaders have also said that an FIR was registered against some of their members at the same police station on Monday.
What the lawyers are saying
Our only demand is that ACP Manasvi Vashishth be suspended with immediate effect and never be given a sensitive posting again for the rest of his life.
Vijay Bishnoi, Secretary, Central District Bar Association
Committee secretary Tarun Rana said the lawyers would continue their protest peacefully until the officers involved were held to account. Dhir Singh Kasana, a former secretary of the Saket Court Bar Association, said advocates there had kept away from court work completely. The committee also said it had taken note of what it called recurring instances of high-handed behaviour by police towards lawyers.
A separate case against a lawyer
In a parallel development, Delhi Police have registered an FIR against a lawyer, his father and some others for allegedly assaulting Patparganj tehsildar Manoj Kumar Singh inside the SDM office in east Delhi’s Geeta Colony on October 23. Police said the dispute arose after the official declined to issue a certificate about the age difference between two brothers. The tehsildar has alleged he was abused and attacked and that a civil defence volunteer who stepped in was pushed. He gave a written complaint on October 24, and the case was registered at Laxmi Nagar police station the following day.
What happens next
Office-bearers of the bar associations are to gather outside their district courts at 11 am on Wednesday to tell the public about their grievances. The committee has called on advocates to assemble at Patiala House Courts at noon on Thursday, October 29, for a march to Delhi Police Headquarters. With the strike open-ended, litigants across the capital’s trial courts can expect hearings to remain disrupted until the bar body and the police reach some settlement.
