| Saturday , March 7 , 2015 |
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150307/jsp/frontpage/story_7344.jsp#.VPsCEnyUeSo
If litigant is God, the temple was desecrated by holiday-makers |
| Tapas Ghosh |
 Figures above represent the approximate number of lawyers present or absent on Friday. On the ground below is another telling figure: cars far fewer than usual are parked in front of the main gate of Calcutta High Court on Friday. On other working days, the area bustles with vehicles, litigants and the legal fraternity In the courtroom were barrister Jayanta Mitra, the state advocate-general; Abhratosh Majumdar, a government pleader; and two junior lawyers on the state panel. A court officer called out the first case on the cause list, which features the cases proposed to be heard during the day. It was a "mention" case, which means the litigant's lawyer will rise and mention the case, following which the head of the bench, in this case the chief justice, will say when it will be heard. Today, the litigant's lawyer was not present in the courtroom. Missing elsewhere in the court were at least another 6,460 lawyers. Almost all the judges were present in their respective courtrooms but proceedings did not take place because of the absence of lawyers. The lawyers had gifted themselves a holiday although the court calendar lists Friday (Holi) as a working day and Thursday (Dol Jatra) as a holiday. The chief justice had not revised the schedule after an association sought a break on Friday, too. Around 40 lawyers were present in the court today - the attendance works out to less than 1 per cent at 0.61 per cent. Chief Justice Chellur told the advocate-general: "Lawyers should not make their clients unhappy because litigants are their God and they provide them with their livelihood." She added: "It is the duty of the Bar (lawyers collectively) to assist the bench in running courts smoothly." Justice Bagchi told the advocate-general: "The present situation of Calcutta High Court will send a wrong message to the young generation studying law and opting for jobs in the corporate sector. It is not good for the lawyers to keep the court closed only to prove their strength." Justice Bagchi hit the nail on its head. The absence of the lawyers today was nothing other than a brazen display of numerical might to sabotage attempts to improve the work culture in a system where litigation is caught up in a mounting pile-up. The judges did not press ahead with the proceedings in the absence of the lawyers, probably keeping in mind the interests of litigants who had nothing to do with the lawyers' insistence on the holiday in addition to the Dol Jatra break on Thursday. However, had the court chosen so, it has the power to hear cases in the absence of lawyers. Article 225 of the Constitution confers on high courts "any power to make rules of court and to regulate the sittings of the court". The court could also have "rejected" the case, which would have pushed the particular matter down the cause list. But the ultimate sufferer would have been the client, not the lawyer. An aggrieved client can move the State Bar Council for acting against his or her lawyer who did not turn up in court. But the council can at best censure the lawyer concerned - and there is no known instance of any advocate being taken to the bar council on such a complaint. In Calcutta, the holiday was not a unanimous choice - it was a case of brute numbers prevailing over the others. The Bar has three wings - the Incorporate Law Society, an association of attorney firms which are now known as solicitors' firms; the Bar Library Club (an association of barristers) and the Calcutta High Court Bar Association, the largest organisation with a membership of 6,500 lawyers. The Bar Association had written to the chief justice to declare Holi also a holiday, in line with the state government's decision to treat both Dol Jatra and Holi as holidays. The chief justice had virtually declined the request, pointing out that the court would follow its calendar. Office-bearers of neither the Bar Library Club nor the Incorporate Law Society were available for comment. Sources said that many members of the two organisations were in favour of attending the court. However, once the numerically stronger Bar Association "conveyed" its holiday decision to the other two bodies, they decided to "reciprocate", a source said. As a consequence, the holiday was "near-total" in the court today. Although the Bar Association had resolved at an executive committee meeting on March 3 that its members would not attend the court today, the other two had not passed any such resolution. In fact, a senior member of the Incorporate Law Society said: "At our general body meeting a month ago, we had resolved that we would not demand not to attend court if any of our members die. We will only demand that a meeting be held at 3.30pm on the last Friday of that month to condole the death of our member." Which means that instead of the Bar Association's preferred way of skipping work for the whole day - a point of friction in the court - the society has proposed that an hour (the court closes at 4.30pm) be set aside a month to express condolences. Today, the chief justice and her junior judge were present in the courtroom till 12.20pm and left for their chambers. The other judges left their respective courtrooms around 12 noon. The chief justice and the other judges were present in their chambers till 4.30pm and took care of paperwork. Some senior lawyers like Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya, Alok Ghosh and Subrata Mukhopadhyay were also present in the court. Around 11am, Justice Sanjib Banerjee, another judge of the court, told the advocate-general in Courtroom No. 16: "The lawyers should try their best so that courts can function for more than 210 days. Why shouldn't courts function for 230 or 240 days in a year?" But the defence - the holiday-happy lawyers of Calcutta - is resting. Literally. |