BCI directs Delhi bar association to withdraw strike call

New Delhi, Nov 9 (IANS) The Bar Council of India (BCI) on Tuesday directed the Bar Council of Delhi (BCD) to immediately withdraw the call for strike by district court lawyers against the conviction of former Delhi High Court Bar Association President Rajiv Khosla in a 1994 assault case.

"Being harbingers of the legal process, practice and procedure, the lawyers' fraternity is expected to do the needful not through strike and agitation but by way of providing legal assistance to Rajiv Khosla to file an appeal against the impugned order and judgment and to avail of all other legal remedies available under the law, as Mr Khosla is aggrieved of the referred order and judgment," the BCI said in its direction.

The BCD had said that the issue would be discussed by the Coordination Committee with the Chief Justice of Delhi High Court, and in case the matter is not resolved to their satisfaction after the meeting, the committee will observe "complete indefinite boycott of the court of the concerned judicial officer".

At this, the BCI said: "Calling upon all members of the Bar to abstain from judicial work for one day in district courts across the state and thereafter further resolving to indefinitely boycott the judicial officer, if the discussion with Chief Justice, does not go as per their desire, will not go down well with the litigant public, the common masses as well as with the judiciary."

It will be seen as a sign of distress and pressure tactic being resorted to by the most powerful class of citizens in the country, who help others in availing justice, the BCI said.

Contending that justice, judiciary, law, lawyers, will all be severely damaged by such an act, it said that even in times of distress, it is reminded that abstinence or boycott will not solve any problem. In fact, rather frequent strikes further complicate issues and weaken the advocates fraternity, as strikes are considered illegal by the Supreme Court, when it concerns advocates, who are considered as officers of the court and as a part of the judicial machinery, it said.

Recently, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Gajender Singh Nagar of the Tis Hazari Court had convicted Khosla, the former president of the Delhi High Court Bar Association. The complainant, Sujata Kohli, who was a lawyer at Tis Hazari Courts in the 1990s, retired last year as a District and Sessions Judge.