Clashes between advocates and police: Madras high court stays trial court proceedings against 31 lawyers

CHENNAI: In a reprieve to 31 lawyers, who were summoned by a trial court here in connection with clashes between advocates and police on the Madras high court campus on February 19, 2009, the high court on Tuesday stayed all further proceedings against them by the trial court.
Justice A D Jagadish Chandira passed the interim order on pleas moved by the 31 lawyers and directed the CBI -- which is probing the clashes -- to file its response in four weeks.

According to the lawyers, there was judicial unrest on February 19, 2009 due to police intervention which ended in a gory incident that “had never happened on any of the court campus in the whole world.”

Though the high court had directed the CBI to probe the allegations against both the advocates and police, the investigating agency had filed the chargesheet only against the lawyers and the probe against police was still pending, they alleged.

“The CBI’s investigation is tainted, biased, shabby and highly unsatisfactory and the impugned interim final report appears very strange to known law. The CBI had prepared and drafted it with a motive against the legal fraternity,” they said.

Recently, the additional chief metropolitan magistrate court in Egmore issued summons to 31 lawyers, cited as accused in the clashes, to appear before the court in February 28 to receive copies of the interim chargesheet filed by the CBI.