The Orissa high court on Friday granted conditional bail to 29 advocates who were arrested in connection with vandalism in the Sambalpur district judge court, but not before slamming their conduct and telling them that legendary Odia lawyer and founder of the state of Odisha Madhusudan Das would have hung his head in shame over their misconduct.
The lawyers were arrested after a protest by them demanding a permanent bench of Orissa high court in western Odisha took an ugly turn on November 30. They allegedly engaged in a scuffle with police forces at Kacheri Square in Sambalpur. The police uprooted the tents pitched by the agitating lawyers following which the latter tried to enter the court premises breaking the police barricades. During the melee, some people allegedly vandalised the Sambalpur district judge court.
Granting bail to the lawyers of Sambalpur Bar Association including its president, the single judge bench of justice V. Narasingh remarked that lawyers should know that as long as lawful redressal was available to aggrieved lawyers, there is no justification for lawyers to join in an illegal conspiracy to commit a gross, criminal contempt of court, thereby striking at the heart of the liberty conferred on every person by the Constitution.
“Strike is an attempt to interfere with the administration of justice. The principle is that those who have duties to discharge in a court of justice are protected by the law and are shielded by the law to discharge those duties, the advocates in return have duty to protect the courts,” justice V Narasingh said.
{{/usCountry}}“Strike is an attempt to interfere with the administration of justice. The principle is that those who have duties to discharge in a court of justice are protected by the law and are shielded by the law to discharge those duties, the advocates in return have duty to protect the courts,” justice V Narasingh said.
{{/usCountry}}“By their conduct, there is no iota of doubt that the petitioners have undermined the majesty and dignity of the court and unabashedly put the presiding officers and staff of the court, even forgetting that there are also lady officers and staff to mortal fear of their life and limb. It is by sheer providence that the judicial officers and staff of the court did not suffer any serious injury,” the high court remarked.
Reminding the lawyers about Utkal Gouraba Madhusudan Das, whose birthday on April 28 is celebrated every year as ‘Lawyers Day’ in Odisha, justice Narasingh said Madhubabu would have “hanged his head in shame and despair knowing that the petitioners-advocates, whose licenses to practice have been suspended by the Bar Council of India, are accused of vandalising the temple of justice.”
The lawyers argued that there was no pre-meditation and it was merely a mob fury and was an expression of collective anger at the disappointment of legitimate local aspirations being not redressed.