BCI stays suspension; lawyers withdraw boycott temporarily

While the advocates’ decision to temporarily withdraw the boycott call had come about in Erode on August 14, the BCI had stayed the advocates’ suspension until August 22. It has also reportedly asked the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry to file a report in regard to attendance of lawyers in the courts across the state. 

The 126 lawyers were suspended on July 24, a day ahead of the lawyers’ call to lay siege to the Madras High Court. They had announced that they would not allow anyone, even judges, to enter the campus. Based on this, BCI in an unprecedented move had suspended the lawyers including P Thirumalairajan chief coordinator of the JAC, and M Velmurugan, former member of Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, Madras High Court Advocates Association (MHAA) secretary Arivazhagan, Women Lawyers Association (WLA) president Nalini and Egmore Bar Association president Chandan Babu from practising in any court or tribunal in India.

The advocates have been on a warpath since May when the high court notified a new set of disciplinary rules empowering the high court and district courts to debar lawyers found collecting money in the name of judges, tampering with court records, browbeating or abusing judges, taking out rallies on court campus, or laying siege to court halls. The advocates, describing the new rules as ‘draconian,’ had sought for their complete withdrawal. 

In the meanwhile, High Court Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul also extended an olive branch to the striking advocates by passing a judicial order that no action would be taken against advocates under the new set of rules, which meant that the rules had been kept in abeyance. 

Law Minister CV Shanmugam had told the State Assembly that court work had not at all been hit owing to the boycott.