NEW DELHI, FEB 25: The Government on Friday decided to initiate dialogue with the striking lawyers and expressed its willingness to institute a probe headed by a sitting Supreme Court judge into Thursday's clash between police and lawyers."I intend to approach the Chief Justice of Supreme Court to make available a judge.so that the commission could be constituted," Law Minister Ram Jethmalani said in the Lok Sabha in reply to queries after he made a suo motu statement terming the incident as "highly regrettable and unfortunate".He said "Government has no objection to this probe provided the Chief Justice of India can provide one of his colleagues for it." On the scope of the dialogue, the Law Minister said, "I have repeatedly explained that there is no proposal at present before the Government, even tentative, for unrestricted entry of foreign lawyers into India or for periodic examination for practicing lawyers." Jethmalani said as far as the amendments to Civil Procedure Code (CPC) were concerned "the dates for notifying the coming into force of the CPC Amendment Act has not been fixed." He said the decision to start the dialogue was taken after representatives of the Bar met Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on Friday afternoon and expressed hope that lawyers would soon call of their strike as the issue was "more or less settled now". Jethmalani stressed that those responsible for Friday's violent incidents, into which the Delhi Government had already instituted a magisterial probe, would not be spared. He said on one hand lawyers claimed that police assault on them was unprovoked while, on the other, police claimed that they had acted strictly in discharge of their duties.In the Capital, which witnessed a clash between lawyers and police on Friday, advocates struck work in sub-ordinate courts and the high court. However, the Supreme Court work remained unaffected though a section of advocates were seen with white protest bands on their black robes. Meanwhile, a report from Chennai said lawyers in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry protesting over the lathicharge on their counterparts in Delhi, had decided to indefinitely boycott courts. Both Congress and TMC in the State have condemned the assault on lawyers. Former prime minister H D Deve Gowda termed as "barbaric and brutal" the police action on lawyers and demanded action against the guilty. AIADMK Supremo Jayalalitha opposed the amendments to the CPC and accused the Government of treating the strike in a "cavalier fashion".
