Lawyers' strikes| Top Court asks High Courts to set up Grievance Redressal Committee
Senior Advocate Manan Kumar Mishra, who is also the Chairman of the Bar Council of India has submitted before the Supreme Court that many a times, members of the Bar might have very genuine grievances and due to non-resolving of such genuine grievance, the members of the Bar go on strike.
The Supreme Court today directed all the High Courts to constitute a Grievance Redressal Committee in their respective High Courts which may be headed by the Chief Justice, to deal with issues behind lawyer's going on strikes.
Such a grievance redressal committee will be consisting of two other senior Judges, one each from service and one from the Bar to be nominated by the Chief Justice as well as the Advocate General, Chairman of the Bar Council of the State and President of the High Court Bar Association, a bench of Justices MR Shah and Ahsanuddin Abdullah has added.
"The High Court may also consider to constitute the similar Grievance Redressal Committee at the District Court level. It is observed that the Grievance Redressal Committee may consider the genuine grievance related to the difference of opinion or dissatisfaction because of procedural changes in filing/listing of the matters of the respective High Courts or any District Courts in their respective States and any genuine grievance pertaining to misbehave of any member of the lower judiciary, provided such grievance must be genuine and not to keep the pressure on any judicial officer...", the order adds.
Registry has been further directed to send the copies of the said order to Registrar General of all the High Courts for further steps in terms of the present order.
While issuing such orders, the Top Court has observed that no member of the Bar can go on strike and/or abstain himself from court working.
"Time and again, this Court has emphasised and criticized the advocates going on strike and abstaining them from work. If the member of the Bar has any genuine grievance or the difficulty being faced because of the procedural changes in filing/listing of the matters and/or any genuine grievance pertaining to misbehave of any member of the lower judiciary they can very well make a representation and it is appropriate that their genuine grievances are considered by some forum so that such strikes can be avoided and members of the Bar who might have genuine grievances like above may ventilate their grievances...", Court has added.
Case Title: District Bar Association Dehradun vs Ishwar Shandilya & Ors.