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HC orders transfer of police officials

The Delhi high court today directed the government to immediately transfer four senior police officials responsible for the February 24 crackdown on a lawyers' demonstration and said the first sitting of the inquiry commission set up to probe the incident must be held within a week.

Officials responsible for ordering the baton-charge on lawyers are Deputy Commissioner of Police Pranab Nanda, Assistant Commissoners of Police T S Bhalla and Vijay Malik and Parliament police station SHO Tilak Raj Mongia.

Though the government has transferred Bhalla and Malik, the court said they must be transferred to some other posts to facilitate a fair and independent inquiry. All transfers should take place within a week, said a division bench comprising Chief Justice Devender Gupta and Justice Cyriac Joseph.

However, the judges said the transfers will not cast a stigma on their careers. They did not find any illegality or arbitrariness in the government's decision to await the recommendations of the commission of inquiry before taking any action.

"But we are not at all satisfied with the government's inaction against policemen who used force against some individual lawyers, including a lady. In the video films, those policemen were seen beating the lawyers as if they were mad dogs on the streets. Their action was totally unwarranted, unprovoked and unjustified," said Justice Joseph while reading out the order.

He said the government's decision to suspend three policemen seems a half-hearted action. All other policemen who used unwarranted force should be identified within two weeks and suspended forthwith.

The judges said the division bench saw video tapes supplied by lawyers and police besides wireless log books of police before pronouncing the order. They noted that wireless log books do not contain details of the baton charge.

The court order said the government did not approach the chief justice of India till March 13 for nominating a sitting judge of the Supreme Court to preside over the proposed commission.

"Precious time was lost and the prospect of an amicable settlement for ending the strike faded."

Justice Joseph said this costly inaction or omission on the government's part helped only to further vitiate the atmosphere and complicate the situation resulting in loss of mutual confidence, hardening of the stand and accusations against each other.

On February 24, nearly 12,000 advocates from all over the country were marching towards Parliament house to present a memorandum to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in protest against controversial amendments to the civil procedure code and proposed changes in the Advocates Act.

More than 80 protestors were injured as police burst teargas shells, fired rubber bullets, used water cannons and a baton charge to disperse them. Several of them suffered multiple injuries, some even in their eyes.

The judicial process across the country has been thrown out of gear by the lawyers' agitation.

The court also said that lawyers have no right to strike.

"Lawyers cannot go on strike infringing the fundamental right of the litigants for speedy trial. A strike by lawyers is illegal and unethical. It is below the dignity, honour and status of lawyers to organise and participate in a strike," it said.

At the same time, Justice Joseph said, anyone obstructing or preventing a lawyer from discharging his professional duty of appearing in court is committing a criminal offence and is interfering with the administration of justice and is committing contempt of court.

"There is absolutely no justification for continuance of the ongoing strike by lawyers and we expect them to recall it immediately," the judges said.

They regretted that in spite of repeated proclamation of faith in the court, the co-ordination committee of various bar associations had failed to show the grace to call off the strike when the court appealed for it.

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