Allahabad High Court: In a public interest litigation filed by the Bar Council of Uttar Pradesh in respect of the lathi charge by the police on the lawyers at Hapur, Uttar Pradesh, with the prayer to issue suitable directions regarding the grievances referred to in the application dated 07-09-2023, preferred by the Bar Council of Uttar Pradesh, to be placed before the Special Committee to be constituted by the Chief Justice, the division bench of Pritinker Diwaker, CJ. and Mahesh Chandra Tripathi, J. has referred the said application of the Bar Council of UP to the Committee chaired by Justice Manoj Kumar Gupta and consisting of Justice Rajan Roy, Justice Mohd. Faiz Alam Khan, Advocate General of Uttar Pradesh or his nominee; Chairman, Bar Council of UP and President, High Court Bar Association.
Further, the Court directed the Special Investigation Team, already constituted by the State Government to look into the incident, and to also intimate about the action taken on the first information reports lodged by the lawyers with respect to the incident, while submitting its interim report, as previously directed.
In this case, a protest was held by the lawyers over a police case against an Advocate, which resulted in a lathi charge by the police on lawyers. Thereafter, the Bar Council of UP abstained from judicial work on 30-08-2023 and later for a further period of three days. The High Court eventually took suo motu cognizance of the ongoing strike and urged the lawyers to resume work. Further, it directed the State Government to include Hari Nath Pandey, Retd. Principal Judge, Family Court, as a member in the SIT, which is already constituted by the State Government to investigate the incident in question.
The matter will next be taken up on 15-09-2023 along with the main case.
[Bar Council of U.P, In Re, 2023 SCC OnLine All 826, Order dated 09-09-2023]
