Addressing the Southern Districts’ Bench and Bar Meet organised by Bar Council of Tamil Nadu here on Tuesday, he said that a meeting of the Chief Secretary to the Government and top police officials in Chennai would be convened soon, if the bar associations were amenable to his suggestion of drafting a code of conduct.
He said that Tamil Nadu was facing a “serious and peculiar†problem with the subordinate courts functioning only for 175 to 190 days as against 230 working days in a year.
Strikes and boycotts
“Nearly 30 to 50 working days are wasted in strikes and boycotts triggered by friction between the police and lawyers.â€
The Chief Justice said that the lawyers should realise that they were part of a society and their personal problems such as disputes with neighbours and alleged involvement in criminal cases should not result in court boycott.
“Lawyers are going on strike at every drop of the hat and, in the process, the credibility of the Bar and advocates is lost. You are punishing your own clients by indulging in strikes,†he added.
Extreme measures such as court boycotts should be resorted to only in rare instances such as assault on lawyers by the police.
“Even if one has to resort to strike, it has to be a token strike,†Mr. Shah said.
Lawyers’ demand
On the lawyers’ demand that prior sanction from the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu should be made mandatory for registering criminal cases against lawyers, the Chief Justice said that imposing such conditions would be against the Constitution.
He wondered what if engineers, architects and other professionals too demanded prior sanction from their respective associations.
“Uncharitable†remarks
Referring to allegations levelled by some of the Bar Association office-bearers that the subordinate judicial officers were submissive to the police officials, the Chief Justice said that such “uncharitable†remarks should be avoided.
“They (judicial officers) are working in difficult conditions.
“Do not make generalised statements. If some of them are indulging in undesirable activities, bring them to my notice,†he said.
High Court Judges, Prafulla Kumar Misra, K. Chandru, S. Nagamuthu; the president of Bar Council of Tamil Nadu, R.K. Chandramohen and executive chairman of Bar Council of India R. Dhanapalraj were present.
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