The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court on Wednesday converted the matter concerning the alleged assault on three Delhi-based advocates, including two women lawyers, and their client inside the Lucknow district court premises on Tuesday into a separate suo motu public interest litigation (PIL). The court has reserved its order on the interim directions.
Event Context
The matter had come up before the Lucknow bench in a special sitting at 7pm on Tuesday on an application moved by Delhi-based advocates Abhipsa Mohanty, Komal Agarwal and Ashutosh Srivastava, who alleged that they were assaulted and prevented from appearing in a civil suit by an advocate and his associates inside the Lucknow district court on July 21.
During Wednesday’s hearing, a video of the incident was played before the bench, which noted that it prima facie showed some advocates, including those named in the application, assaulting a person identified by the applicants as plaintiff Mohd Shakir.
Observing that the allegations, if true, disclosed a very serious matter involving interference with the administration of justice, the court had directed the district judge to submit a report along with the CCTV footage and the commissioner of police, Lucknow, to submit a report specifying the criminal antecedents of the alleged perpetrators.
Team Analysis
A division Bench of Justice Rajan Roy and Justice Manjive Shukla passed the order after considering the reports of the Lucknow district judge and the commissioner of police, the FIR lodged against the advocates against whom allegations have been made in the application, the video clip produced by the applicants and the CCTV footage produced by the district judge.
After hearing all parties, the bench held that the matter ought to be registered as a separate PIL.
When the matter was taken up on Wednesday, the bench heard the advocate applicants, the state authorities’ counsel appearing for the CBI, counsel for advocate Saurabh Kumar Verma, as well as the president and secretary of the Central Bar Association.
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According to the application, the advocates had gone to file a ‘vakalatnama’ in a civil suit when they were allegedly prevented from appearing by the advocate and his associates.
The applicants alleged that not only were they manhandled but their client Mohd Shakir was also badly beaten up and threatened.
