The Hindu : SC rejects plea to review ban on lawyers' strike

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Friday, May 16, 2003

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SC rejects plea to review ban on lawyers' strike

By J. Venkatesan

New DELHI May 15. The Supreme Court has dismissed a plea to review its earlier order holding that "lawyers have no right to go on strike or give a call for boycott, not even on a token strike'' and that lawyers could be barred from practice if they resorted to strike.

A five-judge Constitution Bench, comprising the Chief Justice, V.N. Khare, Justice M.B. Shah, Justice Doraiswamy Raju, Justice S.N. Variava and Justice D.M. Dharmadhikari, recently rejected through circulation petitions filed by the Bar Council of India and various State Bar Councils seeking a review of the court's December 17, 2002 order banning lawyers' strikes throughout the country.

The earlier Constitution Bench had held that repeated strikes had shaken the confidence of the public in the legal profession and affected administration of justice.

Further it was a settled law that a lawyer who had accepted a brief could not refuse to attend the court even in pursuance of a call for strike by the Bar Association.

Further, the Bench had held that "if a lawyer, holding a vakalat of a client, abstains from attending court due to a strike call, he shall be personally liable to pay costs which shall be in addition to damages which he might have to pay his client for loss suffered by him''.

Seeking a review of the above judgment, the BCI and others said that this decision virtually denied the fundamental rights of the advocates to go on strike even in the rarest of rare cases where the integrity, independence, dignity and honour of the Bench and the Bar were threatened.

They said the review petitions raised important questions of law, viz., whether the High Court could frame rules under the Advocates Act so as to debar an advocate though such power had been conferred on the State Bar Council.

Whether a rule framed by the High Court would not violate the principles of natural justice as a serious punishment of debarring an advocate from appearing in the court would get automatically imposed even without hearing him and thus deprive him of his right to serve the litigants and earn his livelihood.

The petitions said that in view of the serious implications of the judgment, it would serve the interest of justice if the judgment was recalled and an opportunity was granted to the BCI to further assist the court on the important and substantial questions of law arising in this case.

But the Bench rejected the review petitions.

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