Bar association to boycott chief justice

CHANDIGARH: Punjab and Haryana High Court Bar Association will boycott the court and functions of chief justice Arun B Saharya, including the farewell party to be given to him on his retirement on September 14.
The Lok Adalat function at Hoshiarpur on August 30 being hosted by the chief justice and the Punjab state legal services authority where the chief justice of India BN Kirpal will be chief guest, too, is to be boycotted to protest against Saharya’s decision to restore work to the three serving judges who had been divested of work from July 1 in the wake of the Punjab Public Service Commission job scam.
This drastic decision was taken at a specially convened meeting of the association during the lunch break on Wednesday, the requisition for which had been submitted for 220 advocates practising at the high court. A resolution to this effect was passed by a voice vote at the end of the deliberations that lasted for over an hour wherein over half a dozen members took part.
The meeting had been convened primarily to consider the situation arising out of the recent judgment delivered by the division bench of justices GS Singhvi and MM Kumar whereby a strike by the advocates had been declared illegal. It was resolved to prefer a review petition in the high court or a special leave petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court. A list of cases where judgments had been reserved by the high court for long is also to be appended to such a petition.
Since the development pertaining to restoration of work to the three serving judges was the latest one, it dominated the deliberations. The three judges namely Amarbir Singh Gill, ML Singhal and Mehtab Singh Gill resumed their normal functioning from Wednesday. The association also resolved to serve show cause notice to advocate Surya Prakash, who had filed a public interest litigation (PIL) challenging the decision of the chief justice to withdraw work from three serving judges, as to why he should not be suspended and removed from the membership for his action.
Winding up the deliberations and before putting the resolutions to vote, association president Hawa Singh Hooda reminded that serious issues were before them. Referring to the restoration of work to three judges, Hooda said it had brought the agitation of the bar back to the point from which it had started.
So far as the issue of transfer of local judges was concerned, for which the association had called on the Union Law minister also, it was proposed to hold a national-level conference of lawyers at Chandigarh sometime in November.