Lawyers' strike to continue as meeting to resolve tension with police fails

The lawyers' strike would continue as a meeting, held on the orders of the Delhi High Court after the lawyers-cops clash, between the members of all district courts associations, representatives of Delhi police and Lt Governor Anil Baijal on Sunday failed to bring out any resolution, the coordination committee general secretary said.

"Despite our cooperation, no concrete step has been taken to arrest the police persons who fired at advocates, so there would be complete, complete and complete abstinence from work with all peaceful modes in all Delhi district courts. Our demand was that the police officers who fired at the advocates be arrested. The police officials opposed it. So we will continue boycotting work," said Dhir Singh Kasana, general secretary of the coordination committee of All District Courts Bar Associations.

He said the meeting, which went on for an hour, was held at the Lt Governor's residence and Special Commissioners of Police Satish Golcha, Praveer Ranjan, Joint Commissioner Devesh Srivastava, Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Monika Bhardwaj, Bar Council of India Chairman Manan Kumar Mishra and all members of the coordination committee of All District Courts Bar Associations.

Earlier, a meeting was scheduled on held on November 7 but was cancelled.

While lawyers' bodies said they walked out of the meeting as no senior officials were present, police said the meeting was about the discussion on "administrative issues of the north district courts" only, but lawyers wanted to discuss the situation in all courts in the national capital.

A committee, which included members of District Court Bar Associations of Delhi, Bar Council of Delhi and Bar Council of India, was constituted to discuss the issue with the representatives of the police establishment, Lt Governor, Home Ministry as per the order of the High Court, BCI had said.

The high court had on November 6 expressed anguish over the "dissonance and friction" prevailing between the bar and the police which represent and constitute "the preserver and the protector of the rule of law" and suggested a meeting between "responsible representatives" of both sides to "sort out their differences amicably, on the basis of discussion and deliberations".

The lawyers of all the six district courts here boycotted work for five consecutive days and had decided to suspend it for the time being and join work from Monday.

Lawyers in six district courts are abstaining from work since November 4, protesting against the clash.

Thousands of police personnel protested outside the Police Headquarters on Tuesday to demand action against those involved in an attack on their colleague outside the Saket court, the unprecedented scenes of police protest leading their chief Amulya Patnaik urging them to resume duty.