March 9 holiday justified, argues KHCBA

KOCHI, MARCH 12: The March 9 holiday declaration by the Kerala High Court coinciding with the Kochi One-Day International (ODI) cricket ma...

KOCHI, MARCH 12: The March 9 holiday declaration by the Kerala High Court coinciding with the Kochi One-Day International (ODI) cricket match is snowballing into a major controversy with some members of the Kerala High Court Bar Association (KHCBA) resolving to condemn the statements of those who differed with the declaration.

An extraordinary general body meeting scheduled for March 13 is to take uptwo resolutions moved by a section of the lawyers condemning the"irresponsible and scandalous" statements made by former Supreme Courtjudge Justice V R Krishna Iyer and senior lawyers T P Kelu Nambiar andGovind K Bharathan against the holiday decision.

It was reported in this newspaper that the holiday declaration had sparkeda controversy in the State. The court had declared the holiday in lieu of working on March 25 for holding a Lok Adalat.

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The first resolution, signed by advocate Sunny Mathew and 41 others, plans to "condemn and protest the irresponsible" press releases by Justice V RKrishna Iyer, T P Kelu Nambiar and Govind K Bharathan on the issue of the High Court declaring a holiday on March 9.

"We, the members of the association, have resolved to strongly protest andcondemn the irresponsible, scandalous and unwarranted statements by JusticeV R Krishna Iyer, T P Kelu Nambiar, Govind K Bharathan and others regarding the declaration of the holiday without even verifying the actual facts," the resolution said.

The second one, by advocate Babu Varghese and 124 others, intends to "declare solidarity with the Chief Justice on the issue of declaring a holiday on March 9 and to condemn the unwanted interference by outsiders in the internal administration of the High Court".

"The notification declaring March 9 as holiday was issued by the HighCourt as early as on February 25. However, nobody had endeavored to make anyattempt to correct the mistake," lamented the resolution while declaringsolidarity with the Chief Justice.

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When contacted, KHCBA president Abraham Vakkanal confirmed that theassociation has received two such resolutions which are to be discussed inthe extraordinary general body meeting of March 13.

"What jurisdiction does the Bar Association have to pass such a resolution?Interestingly, they did not even ask us about our statements," GovindBharathan, whom the resolution had targeted, said in his reaction.

"I was only expressing my personal opinion with the interest of thejudiciary in mind. Because, of late there had been a lot of criticism aboutthe arrears of cases and other things," he said. "My opinion was only in the interest of the judiciary and the institution itself," he added.

When contacted, Kelu Nambiar said that he was not aware of any suchresolutions. Justice V R Krishna Iyer was not available for comments as he was out of station.