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Strike by lawyers will be viewed as bad in law: HC

CUTTACK: Quoting a Supreme Court ruling, the Orissa High Court on Wednesday observed that the lawyers did not have right to go on long strike boycotting the court proceedings for days together and any strike by lawyers would be viewed as “bad in law”.

This observation came from the bench of Chief Justice A K Ganguly and Justice B N Mohapatra while disposing of a PIL filed by one B N Satapathy in connection with the prolonged strike by lawyers of several bars in the State demanding permanent circuit benches of the High Court in Sambalpur and Berhampur.

The PIL was disposed of on Wednesday in view of the lawyers resuming their duties.

Lawyers of Berhampur who had gone on strike for more than a hundred days joined the court on Monday. “Since the lawyers have called off their strike, there is no need to adjudicate over the PIL any further,” the HC said.

The HC however, took exception to the prolonged strike by lawyers of some bars and warned that repetition of the same in future would be viewed as violation of the Constitutional bench ruling of the apex court that was passed in 2003 in Captain Harish Paul V/s Union Government case.

The Constitutional bench had then observed that the lawyers did not have the right to go on strike.

However, they could either put black badges or go on a token strike to air their views. But before taking the extreme step, the lawyers should obtain prior permission from their presiding judges, the SC had said.

It may be mentioned that following a request made to the Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to consider setting up circuit benches in Berhampur and Sambalpur, several bars in the State went on strike demanding benches of the HC at their places.

The full bench of the HC, however, turned down the Chief Minister’s proposal in November last year.

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