The Madras High Court on Friday directed the State government to respond by Thursday to a public interest litigation petition seeking permission for lawyers to move about freely for official work since courts and judiciary had been exempted from the lockdown.

Justices R. Subbiah and R. Krishnan Ramasamy directed State government pleader V. Jayaprakash Narayanan to obtain instructions from the government, within a week, on a petition filed by advocate R. Kalaiyarasi of Chennai, through her counsel M. Gnanasekar.

In her affidavit, the litigant said that advocates were finding it difficult to work during the lockdown since court proceedings were being held through video conferencing but case papers could not be prepared easily from the residences of lawyers.

Stating that most times, the lawyers had to go to their offices to prepare case papers and take photocopies, since the High Court Registry, at times, insisted on filing hard copies too, the petitioner also sought a direction to the police not to prevent lawyers from travelling for work.