Avoid confrontation on strike issue: Sorabjee

Attorney General of India Soli Sorabjee today asked lawyers to avoid confrontation on the issue of strike, which has been prohibited by the Supreme Court, and said going on strike by defying the apex court’s verdict would be subversion of the rule of law.

Delivering a lecture on the topic, ‘‘Lawyers Right to Strike’’, here, he noted that despite the Supreme Court verdict, the lawyers recently went on a strike when a writ petition on the issue was pending before it. ‘‘Don’t they have confidence in courts,’’ he said, hoping that the bar and the bench work in harmony.

Sorabjee said if the lawyers went on strike despite the court verdict, it would mean undermining their own position and an ‘‘invitation for ridicule and scorn and contempt’’. It would also mean subverting the rule of law which is ‘‘regrettable’’, he said.

‘‘Understand the importance and consequences of the action and restrict strike only in the rarest of the rare cases,’’ he said.