Lawyer found dead in Tis Hazari Courts premises, one held

A 40-year-old lawyer was found dead with a head wound inside the Tis Hazari Courts complex here on Friday, police said.

One person has been arrested and three people were detained, police added.

The lawyer, Rajeev Sharma, was found dead near an eatery in T-Block lawyers' chambers on the premises around 6 a.m.

"Prima facie it seems that Sharma was murdered, using a sharp weapon," a police official said.

A resident of Sector-16 in North Delhi's Rohini, Sharma hailed from Himachal Pradesh. He was apparently hit with a sharp-edged weapon on his forehead after a heated scuffle inside the eatery, according to police.

Sources said that Dhanna Ram Choudhury, 49, a resident of Jodhpur in Rajasthan, has been arrested and three other employees of the eatery -- owned by advocate Manoj Singh -- have been detained.

Choudhury, during interrogation, told police that the advocate reached the eatery after consuming alcohol and engaged in a heated argument with him over some issue. This led to a scuffle.

Some other eatery employees also joined in the scuffle and one of them hit advocate Sharma with a sharp object, said sources, adding that police are now trying to find out the role of other employees in the murder.

Police said that Sharma's body was lying on road, around 20 metres from his chamber No.30.

"Sharma's hands and legs were folded and his forehead was hit by a sharp-edged weapon," said a police official.

"...we found blood stains on stairs. It was clear that the advocate was killed inside the eatery in the night and his body was thrown on the road early Friday morning," the official said.

Tis Hazari Courts advocates staged a protest and went on a strike after his death came to light.

"City lawyers have decided to suspend all work on Friday due to the murder of advocate Sharma in the courts' premises," said R.K. Wadhwa, chairman of the coordination committee of bar associations of all district courts.