Lawyers go on strike; litigants suffer

Manmeet,who had come to court from Jalandhar in a property dispute case,said,”I had taken leave from my office to come to Chandigarh. My lawyer informed me about the strike after I reached here. He said that he too was unaware of the strike until this morning as he had been out of station for the last three days. My case has been adjourned till March.”

Meanwhile,UT District Bar Association President N K Nanda said,“We have to follow the call of the Bar Council of India. We had already written to the district and sessions judge on Thursday about Friday’s strike.”

He informed that the Bar Councils and Bar Associations of all courts across the country held a protest against the Centre’s higher education bill. The association stated that the bill would take away the powers of the Legal Education Committee of the Bar Council of India.

The lawyers pointed out that the Legal Education Committee is a panel of the Bar Council of India which supervises the legal education of advocates,recommends law courses and examines the infrastructure of law colleges.

“If the bill is implemented by Parliament,the powers of committee will be exercised by appointees of the government,” they observed.