The Bar Council of India has issued a directive dated 27.03.2017 that all Bar Councils and Bar Associations should abstain from work on 31st March 2017 to protest the proposed amendments to the Advocates Act 1961 by the Amendment Bill 2017. It is claimed that the proposed amendments are “undemocratic” and “anti-lawyers“.
Ironically, the strike is to protest a proposal made by the Law Commission that bans lawyers from going on strike and penalizes those who abstain from appearing in Court during a strike.
According to the IE, the Bar Council of India has staged a somersault. Earlier, Manan Mishra, the President of the Bar Council, had recommended to the Law Commission of India that lawyers who indulge in unjustified strikes should be fined and have their licences suspended. However, following protests in front of his office on March 23, Mishra assured lawyers that he would take back his recommendation.
“The commission has undermined the independence of the bar, and made a provision which could compel lawyers to face disciplinary proceedings before a disciplinary committee of five members, none of whom could be an advocate,” the Bar Council of India stated.
It is also claimed that the Bill has defined the term “misconduct” in a manner that any judge, judicial official or client can easily say that the behaviour of the lawyer is “unlawful, disgraceful or dishonourable,” the Council added.
The Supreme Court lawyers have decided that they will not participate in the strike but will extend their support to other lawyers by placing a white ribbon on their coat as a mark of protest.
On an earlier occasion when lawyers went on a “Jail Bharo Abhiyan” to protest numerous grievances, eminent lawyers like Fali S. Nariman, K. K. Venugopal and others condemned the move on the basis that lawyers are not entitled to hold “courts and litigants to ransom by refusing to attend Court“.
There are also numerous judgements of the Supreme Court where it has been made clear that “The lawyers have no right to go on strike or give a call for boycott, not even on a token strike” (see Dear Advocates, How You Can Go On Strike When Supreme Court Has Banned It?).
what if? it is also your sweet will to join . tks
He is the only peerson who always fight for and to protect otrhers right.
No doubt every one has some kind of strike right as a fundamental right, it is ‘per se’ Art 14 itself, when read wit Art 21 (Life and Liberty); as a professional advocate ‘you need to have your rights need to be protected – it is unnecessarily intruded by Law commission’ my be due to the chairman of Bar council of India; after all judge himself is an advocate, why he doesn’t exercise his right to strike, as he thinks being an advocate and a judge (both faces he has to face) that way he permits strikes of labor and then all kinds of employees, that way he grants the power of ‘strike’ means the strike is a non violent exercise to bring forth their (affected persons’) grievances to the public domain, that was judge recognizes the ‘right of strike’; by why he doesn’t go on strike is that he thinks self abnegation of right to strike is n the interest of the public for the public might suffer badly if courts are shut down on account of judges strike if it happens; but today we have seen, most courts are short of judges just because the ruling governments took the functioning courts ‘for granted’, not providing adequate complements of judges to judge several issues flooding in the courts, if judges resort to strike the sufferers are again the public; so he has his ‘self image ‘ magic of psyche , ‘he shall be as far as possible ‘not to be to adamant’ that is meaning he subdues his interests; that way he absorbs excessive work load, the other day CJI Khehar apologized for his error in taking a matter listed at 3 pm – that shows how he responded to advocate listed in that matter, similarly it equal responsibility of advocate not to over burden judges but the advocates for no apparent meaningful reason, seeks adjournments that adjournments too cause several backlogs on the bench to be taken up later that means the backlogs get bulged up and affects judges constrained time factor after all you have only 24 hours a day, of which judge has to apportion in the court time, then reading time of the case, then he has to read case laws relevant that cannot be so easily culled out but also interpretation time, discussion time with his associates and fellow judges, that way to be a ‘judge’ is not that easy task indeed; so, many leading advocates prefer not to offer themselves for becoming judges themselves, which all of us know; in fact for selfish reasons of advocacy only, you need not to resort to ‘strike work’ like others; yea, you can express your grievances by putting some badges like some additional ‘white bands’ on your neck as you people are taken for granted, see today there are too many advocates in several courts with no income – so a lot is to carry on a day in a court at the munificence of fellow advocates footing their teas or lunches too, that is not rare at all, i too had to pass through such days , but that helps us to learn our trade of advocacy properly understand ‘without proper application of statutes of some so called ‘half backed laws, emanating from governments thanks to the half backed law makers create more and more meaningless statutes, several times such statutes do not correctly address the issues prevailing on any single day, see now GST law or Finance Act 2017 just passed by brute majority in the house, obviously such half backed Acts create more problems to both commercial world as also consumer world, in every branch of working in ones’ life, we as ‘Advocates’ and ‘judges’ have to help the man on the street – our democracy is cracking day by day thanks to politicking by politicians class, a community of people irrespective of their classes individually they belong to that way they gang up against the very voters who needs to rely on us as ‘advocates’ to fight out for the rights of the people who have been put to serious inconveniences, you all may know, so ‘stopping court work ‘ by advocates like us obviously affects the ship of state, the ship rocks severely like in a gale on an open ocean, so before deciding to go on strike we need to think a lot that is stopping the function of the court that way we need to express our grievances by some black bands or some such bands like Japanese labor did in 1970s and some time more like producing one component only and not other ‘complementary components’ that affected the manufacture of goods and services – here our work being some ‘soft ware’ type we cannot resort to hard ware workers who did in any process – after all we as Advocates ought to be some examples to be emulated by one and all as we are treated as a ‘better educated community’ ; so it is up to us how we choose to behave – so i say here ‘Live in the minimum, create the maximum.Give the entire thing to the world outside’ is my considered take friends. this i reached over 50+ yrs practice of law , tks for patience to read this note of mine whatever it is worth. tks and regds