Month-long lawyers' strike slows justice delivery in Rajasthan

The courts are functioning by taking up cases without lawyers, who come there every day, hold agitation and guide clients what to say before the judges.

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A Supreme Court Bench of Justices Sudhanshu Jyoti Mukhopadhyaya and S.A. Bobde on August 4 told Jaipur lawyer Bharat Bhushan Pareek, an appellant in an eviction decree against him for a flat and a basement in a prime Jaipur locality: "First end the strike and then come to us on August 8."

When that didn't happen, the Bench on August 8 issued notices to the opposite party and adjourned the case till September 1.

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Meanwhile, the lawyers' strike in Rajasthan continues for over a month now.

On August 4, Justice Mukhopadhyaya indirectly raised the issue of lawyers being squatters when he asked senior lawyer Ramesh P. Bhat, representing Pareek, what people say about lawyers? Bhatt said in Gujarat, they say let there be no dealings with lawyers, income tax officers and police.

Mukhopadhyaya had been to Rajasthan a day earlier on a visit unrelated to the strike but must have got an insight into it.

The Bench's observation expressed concern over a complete strike by one lakh lawyers in Rajasthan since July 9.

It was triggered by a frivolous incident on July 7 when district bar's lawyers were boycotting work against the state government's proposal to abolish revenue courts by giving its powers to divisional commissioners.

That day, Additional District and Sessions Judge Mahendra Singh Chaudhary rejected Pareek's plea against eviction order from the flats but Pareek insisted that he wasn't heard on July - the previous date of the case.

Pareek and his advocates including Gopesh Kumbhaj, president of the Jaipur Bar Association, entered into a heated argument with the judge, demanding recall of the order.

Kumbhaj said he was asking the judge that given it was a July 7 strike, no judge was passing adverse orders and so he too should not.

Pareek has been a tenant since 1998 but he insists his opponents Ambreesh Chandra Kudasia, 79, a retired official at Yamunanagar Sugar Mill, and his wife Nutan, 70, both barely able to walk, have no title of the property but various courts have upheld their claim.

Their counsel, Rajesh Sharma, denies Pareek's stand and says that arguments of both sides were heard and completed on July 5 and only the order was pronounced on July 7.

Judge Chaudhary felt offended on being pressurised to recall a judicial order and brought it on record by calling it contemptuous.

By the afternoon of July 9, all lawyers across the state went on strike against it demanding the judge's transfer.

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On July 13, judicial officers from the state got together in Jaipur backing their brother judge and criticising lawyers' approach.

They were given support by court staff.

On July 14, Rajasthan High Court judge Bela M. Trivedi took suo moto notice of the strike and issued a contempt notice to Pareek, Kumbhaj and others for making a mountain out of a molehill to go on strike.

That made the lawyers include Bela M. Trivedi's transfer too the main demand to end the strike.