Extraordinary events unfolded at the Thiruvananthapuram District Court on Wednesday when a group of lawyers gheraoed the First Class Magistrate inside her chamber. The lawyers were allegedly irked by the fact that the magistrate denied bail to an accused in a case that was being heard on Wednesday.
Magistrate Deepa Mohan ruled that bail cannot be granted to a bus driver of Kerala Road Transport Corporation (Kerala RTC), who is accused in the case of injuring a woman due to rash driving, and remanded him to judicial custody.
Following this, the lawyers of the Thiruvananthapuram Bar Association gheraoed the magistrate in her chamber, expressing their displeasure with the verdict and reports state that she was even locked inside her chambers. However, the Bar Association has denied that they locked her room.
Advocate KP Jayachandran, president of Thiruvananthapuram Bar Association said, “Why should we lock a magistrate? It is true that we had gone to her chamber to express our displeasure over the ruling, but we never locked the room.”
According to him, this is not the first time the lawyers are expressing displeasure on the rulings of the magistrate.
The lawyer stated that the trial against the accused, charged with section 337 (Causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) of the Indian Penal Code, started on Wednesday but the additional public prosecutor (APP) for the victim was not present in court.
“There is a Supreme Court order that a magistrate cannot act as the APP but the magistrate started to examine a witness in the case. The witness said that the accused would make threats, seeking favours and based on this, the magistrate cancelled the bail of the accused and remanded him to judicial custody. Such kind of procedure is not in the Code of Criminal Procedure. The magistrate could have ordered that the statement of the witness be checked, but she did not do so,” advocate Jayachandran said.
He also stated that the accused’s lawyer will move a higher court to appeal against the magistrate’s decision in the case. “While preparing the documents for this, we went to the magistrate’s chamber and talked to her about our stand. But we did not lock her up,” he said.
According to officer bearers of Thiruvananthapuram Bar Association, there are six complaints against the magistrate by various lawyers in the past year, citing that proper codes are not followed.
“We have decided to boycott the proceedings of this particular magistrate’s court. We want the higher authorities to intervene,” said advocate Jayachandran.