MP Lawyers Strike: CJI Asks State Bar Council To Call Off Strike, Ensures Matter Will Be Address Properly

The Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud recently met with the Madhya Pradesh Bar Council chairman Prem Singh Bhadouria and other members to explore the issues that prompted recent lawyer strikes around the state.

The State Bar Council delegation initially met with Justice SK Kaul and Justice JK Maheshwari of the Supreme Court.

After hearing the delegation’s viewpoints, both judges went to meet with the Chief Justice of India.

Afterwards, the CJI and five other judges met with the delegation for a discussion on the matter.

At the meeting, CJI Chandrachud ensured the lawyers that their concerns would be addressed and asked them to end their strike over the Madhya Pradesh High Court’s 25 debt scheme.

On March 27, the State Bar Council decided to go on another two-day strike. The Council alleged that the Madhya Pradesh High Court took no action to address the lawyers’ demands to repeal the 25 debt scheme, which requires district courts to resolve 25 of the oldest cases within three months.

Considering the dissatisfaction among advocates in district courts, the State Bar Council has asked all lawyers in the state to refrain from appearing in court on March 28 and 29.

The lawyers decided to strike from March 23 to March 25 in protest of the scheme, which sparked demonstrations that started last month. The Council had urged that the High Court revoke its scheme, failing which lawyers across the strike would boycott judicial work.

Following that, the High Court took suo motu cognizance of the strike, calling it a “sad day for the state of Madhya Pradesh.”

A division bench of Chief Justice Ravi Malimath and Justice Vishal Mishra had warned the striking advocates that contempt action would be taken against them if the boycott was not called off.

In this order, the bench stated the following to support the need for the plan to dispose of old cases:

“We are of the considered view that the duty of a lawyer is to uphold the rule of law. It is he, who fights for the legal rights of a litigant. There are almost 20 Lakh cases pending in the district court judiciary and more than 4 Lakh cases pending in the High Court. Every effort is being made by the Hon’ble High Court to reduce the pendency. The action of the respondent No.1 seeking to abstain from court work is opposed to the well established principles of the legal profession. The respondent No.1 cannot call for an illegal act to be done.”

The Chairman of the State Bar Council and each elected member received show-cause notices from the court on 27th March, asking them to explain why they should not be held in criminal contempt of court for ordering lawyers to abstain from judicial work.

A single bench of Justice Atul Sreedharan noted that the strike called by the Chairman was in brazen defiance of the order passed by the High Court on March 24.