In a new twist to the clash between the judges at Madras High Court and the lawyers of the Madurai Bar Association, the Bar Council of India(BCI) has suspended the licenses of 15 lawyers who were part of the protest before Madras High Court earlier this month. However, the State Bar Council requested BCI to reconsider their decision.
Moreover, the Bar Council of India felt that the State Bar Council was hesitant to take a decision against the lawyers hence, took disciplinary action against the lawyers. The suspension notice has been given to the lawyers without prior notice, and states, “The case is exceptional and dignity of profession at stake.”
On Wednesday, the Bar Council had written to the BCI chairman asking not to suspend advocates as a meeting regarding the same will be taking place on Thursday. The BCI responded by saying that they cannot stop the suspension, but allowed the Tamil Nadu Bar Council to conduct disciplinary committee proceedings within a month, failing which the disciplinary committee will automatically get transferred to the Bar Council of India.
The following day, the State Bar Council formed a committee with two State Bar Council members, K Ranganathan and M Varadhan to look for a senior advocate to conduct the proceedings.
The proceeding do not seem to be much of a use as the State Bar Council’s chairman issued prohibitory orders against advocate ,“who are publishing, distributing pamphlets, handbills, banner and making unnecessary allegations against the judges”, instead of condemning the advocates involved in the protests as stated in the New Indian Express .
They also decided to publish show-cause notices to AK Ramasamy and other advocates who staged a protest on September 14 in Chief Justice SK Haul’s court hall.
Shockingly, it also asked the BCI chairman to reconsider the suspension of the 15 advocates and also met the Chief Justice asking him to re-consider the order cancelling license to Bar association to occupy the court premises.
Meanwhile, the order, as reported by The New Indian Express for the suspended advocates said, “The advocates of Madurai are said to be on strike for months together saying that they shall not put helmets over their heads. Such ridiculous stand or demands by the intellectuals of the society is beyond imagination, no prudent man could be expected to make such irresponsible demands”.
However, the long list of the suspended advocates, include Madurai District Bar Association President AK Ramasamy and Secretary P Dharmaraj, currently facing contempt of Court for staging protest against the helmet rule for bikers. The September 16 protest was for the hearing of these two people when the advocates stormed the Court hall. The other advocates are: former Bar leader W Peter Ramesh Kumar, V C Sankaranarayanan, Arumugam, A Nedunchezhian, M Thirunavukkarasu, S Karunanidhi, A Saravanan, P Natarajan, S Vanchinathan, S Ayyapparaja, B Ashok, J Ramamoorthy and C M Arumugam.
“The present case appears to be the height of professional misconduct by some of the advocates, and in my opinion, this case needs an extraordinary kind of order with a view to regain faith of the people, the judiciary , the litigants and the common man of the country ,“ said BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra in a TOI report.