UP bar council members to resume work from Monday after HC forms panel to look into Hapur ‘lathicharge’

UP Bar Council have decided to return to work from Monday after the Allahabad High Court formed a six-member judicial committee to look into the matter.

Prayagraj: The members of the Bar Council of Uttar Pradesh, who were protesting against an incident of alleged police lathicharge on lawyers in Hapur, have decided to return to work from Monday after the Allahabad High Court formed a six-member judicial committee to look into the matter.

According to a press release issued by the bar council, a bench of Chief Justice Pritinker Diwakar and Justice Mahesh Chandra Tripathi was constituted on Saturday to hear the arguments of council chairman Shiv Kishore Gaur, member-secretary Jai Narayan Pandey and member Madhusudan Tripathi.

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The council presented its stand on the Hapur incident before the bench on behalf of the lawyers of the state, following which a committee under the chairmanship of Justice Manoj Kumar Gupta was set up. The committee will also have Justice Rajan Rai, Justice Mohammad Faiz Alam Khan, the advocate general of Uttar Pradesh or his nominee and the presidents of the state bar council and High Court Bar Association as its members.

The release said in such a situation, all the members of the state bar council have postponed their decision to abstain from judicial work. However, if the demands of the lawyers are not met by the government, the agitation will be continued in phases in the entire state.

The bar council, at an emergency meeting last Sunday, called upon lawyers across the state to continue the strike till September 6 against the alleged police lathicharge on lawyers on August 29, when they were protesting against the registration of a case against one of their woman colleagues and her father.

The case was registered following a confrontation between the woman lawyer and police when she was going to Ghaziabad in her car.

The Allahabad High Court Bar Association had, however, resumed court proceedings on Wednesday.

According to the release issued by the bar council, the committee constituted by the high court will be fully capable of redressing all the complaints of the aggrieved lawyers on the issue. Since the state bar council is the mother body of the lawyers, in view of the anger prevailing among the advocates after the Hapur incident, judicial work has been disrupted due to the strike, it said.

The bench has directed the Special Investigation Team (SIT) formed by the government to probe the incident and apprise it of the action taken in relation to the FIR lodged on a complaint from the lawyers.

After hearing the lawyers, the bench said, “Your anger is justified, but due to no work by the advocates, crores of litigants across the state are being affected and the workload in the court is increasing.” According to the release, the lawyers will stage a peaceful protest at the collectorate, treasury and registry premises on September 16. On September 22, they will observe a “Black Day” by tying black ribbons on their shirts in protest against the Hapur incident and on September 29, they will burn an effigy of the state government.

Division-wise lawyers’ conferences will be held on October 6, while on October 13, a conference of the presidents and secretaries of all the bar associations of Uttar Pradesh will be organised at the state bar association in Prayagraj, the release said, adding that on October 20, there will be a gherao of the Assembly.