Howrah clash: Calcutta HC asks lawyers to resume work

KOLKATA: A Calcutta High Court division bench of Chief Justice T B Radhakrishnan and Justice Arijit Banerjee on Monday appealed to lawyers agitating across the state to “resume their professional duty in the interest of litigants”. Lawyers launched a state-wide cease-work on Thursday in “protest against alleged police brutality” on lawyers of Howrah court on April 24. The court further observed that the legal system has to be back on the rails.

The appeal, notwithstanding, the Bar Council of West Bengal — the lawyers’ parent body — extended the cease-work till May 2. It was supposed to end on Monday.
On Monday, members of the high court-appointed five-judge committee, comprising sitting judges of the high court, visited Howrah court and recorded statements of lawyers on the alleged police attack on them. The committee included justices Biswanath Samadder, Dipankar Datta, Sanjib Banerjee, Mumtaz Khan and Somen Sen. During their meeting with lawyers, the judges observed that the bench seeks the cooperation of the Bar to resolve the dispute. The committee members also met the Howrah district judge.
Hearing a suo motu public interest litigation (PIL), the division bench headed by the Chief Justice directed the state home secretary, director-general of police (DGP), Howrah police commissioner, Howrah SP, commissioner of Howrah Municipal Corporation (HMC) and OC of Howrah to file separate personal affidavits “touching all aspects of the untoward incidents which have occurred on the Howrah court premise on April 24”. The affidavit should be filed on May 1 when the bench will hear the case.
The bench ordered that “at the appropriate level”, the administrative side of the high court “will carry out requisite exercise to ensure that the judicial functioning of the courts at Howrah is smoothly carried out”. The order further stated that “for this purpose, the Bar Council of West Bengal and other requisite stake-holders may extend such cooperation as the high court may require and call for”.
After the April 24 incident, the Calcutta High Court Chief Justice took suo motu cognizance of the matter and directed the high court registry to serve notices on 12 high-level functionaries, including state chief secretary, home secretary, DGP, advocate general, the Centre’s additional solicitor general for eastern region, Howrah district judge and Howrah chief judicial magistrate.
When the suo motu PIL came up for hearing on Monday, an application was filed before the division bench by the Calcutta High Court Bar Association seeking that the association be added as a litigant in the petition.