Thursday, March 5, 2009

Justice B.N.Srikrishna files report

Newspaper reports state that Justice B.N.Srikrishna(Retd) met the Chief Justice of India at his residence yesterday and handed over his report. The matter is listed today before the Supreme Court.
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4 comments:

  1. Y.PrakashMarch 5, 2009 at 8:31 PM

    Keeping my fingers crossed. Hope justice prevails.

    Y.Prakash
    Admin
    http://www.lawyersclubindia.com

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  2. thayaparanMarch 7, 2009 at 9:27 AM

    Dear Friends,

    DISTORTED DEPICTION OF EVENTS AND BIASED REPORT

    The Interim Report of Justice Sri Krishna blames the lawyer and describes the lawyers as hooligans and miscreants. Such generalized observations in the report needs to be condemned. Justice Sri Krishna was requested by the Supreme Court to inquire into the incidents that took place on 19/02 and to file report. But Justice Sri Krishna went beyond the scope of the purpose for which he was appointed and went on to believe the distorted version of the police and justified the police attack on lawyers.

    The police have placed distorted and prejudicial facts about the madras high court lawyers to Justice Sri Krishna and projected as though the entire lawyer community is pro LTTE. With the background of prejudiced version of police it appears that Justice Sri Krishna went on to explore and report the 19/02 incident and has justified the deployment of armed force into the high court campus describing the situation as extraordinary circumstance. Actually, on 19/02 the Advocates had called off the boycott and were attending to their court work and the situation was normal in the campus.

    Yet another remark in the report justifying the police attack that “As enforcers of law, the policemen are entitled to use such force as is commensurate with the danger that they apprehend” is uncalled for. Advocates were not armed with lethal weapons and they did not indulge in any brutal attack causing any serious damage. The wordy arguments later resulted in stone throwing incident. The entire battalion of police was armed and they were holding guards. There was no imminent danger to the police force or at the campus. The true fact is that police went on rampage without any justifiable reason or provocation. To diffuse stone throwing incident by a small group of lawyers, the police force inflicted such brutal attack on all lawyers, staffs and public. The imperceptive act of Justice Arumugaperumal Adityan entering the clash area exacting to mediate irritable lawyers and aggressive police force has been described as bravery act. The Hon’ble Judge’s selective exclamation in the video "don't throw stones at the police, they are our protectors" has been pointed out by Justice Sri Krishna observing that the Hon’ble Judge was appealing to the lawyers and not to the police, making him to conclude that the lawyers were attacking police and the police were the victims at that relevant point of time. Justice Sri Krishna in his interim report has pronounced verdict without proper enquiry.

    Justice Sri Krishna was not asked to find out whether the attack on lawyers by the police is justifiable. It is highly deplorable that a retired Supreme Court Judge, failed to understand his role and exceeded his limitation, instead of inquiring and reporting the facts that took place on 19/02 in the High Court premises, the learned Judge commented on the Judges of High Court, depicted the madras lawyers as “hooligans & miscreants”, justified the action of the police force, advised all of us to condemn the police excess, has certified that the Commissioner of Police is not to be blamed, Above all, Justice Sri Krishna opined that the irregularity committed by the armed policemen have justifiable excuse in view of the extraordinary circumstances. To protect the act of bureaucrats, Justice Sri Krishna has gone to the extent of blaming the Madras High Court Judges for the present piquant situation. How the Madras High Court Judges going to react to this irreverence certification of Justice Sri Krishna is to be watched.

    Disregarding the simple purpose that Justice Sri Krishna was appointed to find and report about the facts taken place on 19/02, the learned Judge went on to pronounce his opinions and suggestions to the Supreme Court.

    Luckily, Justice Sri Krishna was kind enough and not in mood to suggest the Government to confer prestigious award to the Police Commissioner, suggest to suspend the madras lawyers from the bar council and suggest that all Madras High Court Judges to own responsibility and to quit their position.

    The unsavory acts of bureaucrats are justified and the judiciary has been indicted by Justice Sri Krishna. Democracy is at peril and not the lawyers.

    A Thayaparan
    Advocate

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  3. K. RamanrajMarch 12, 2009 at 7:50 PM

    Came across a couple of interesting comments at:
    http://citizensalliance.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/madras-high-court-srikrishna-report-another-version/

    ReplyDelete
  4. PP RaghavacharyMarch 19, 2009 at 10:07 AM

    I have already given my detalied analysis of Srikrishna's Report, I paste it below:




    Srikrishna Committee Report on Madras High Court Mayhem

    Lawyers being Court Officers form part of the justice administration system. The lawyers and judges are one family, they need to see each-other’s face in the day-to-day business of the Courts. The report of one-man Committee of Justice B.N. Srikrishna has in fact rubbed the lawyers on the wrong side. This is not only for the indictment and genaralising lawyers as hooligans and miscreants but because the report of the Committee is vitiated due to bias and one-sided approach. Major part of the comments made in the report is outside the scope of the specific directions of the Supreme Court in its Order dated 26.02.2009:

    1) The Supreme Court in its order has stated that “the terms of reference to the Committee shall be finally decided at the earliest by the Acting Chief justice of the Madras High Court. The Committee is silent on what terms of reference was given.

    2) The Supreme Court has specifically mentioned in its Order that the Committee should report on whether any immediate action against the police officers who are allegedly allowed armed policemen to enter the premises of the High Court without permission of Acting Chief Justice. The Committee has failed to answer this point in the report.





    3) While the Supreme Court directed that the Committee be given the assistance of two senior police officers attached to CBI Unit (Southern Zone) of the Madras. The report of the Committee is silent as to who are those senior police officers that assisted the Committee.

    4) The report extensively deals with the incidents those have taken place commencing from November, 2008 in about eight pages of the report while the Order of the Supreme Court is specific that the Committee should inquire into the incident which happened on 19.02.2009.

    5) Justice Srikrishna in his report says he had interviews, received number of written representations, affidavits, several CDs containing videos, still photographs of the incident and also recorded versions of a number of persons including concerned Hon’ble Judges of the Madras High Court. However, not a single instance of who and what such persons have stated during the course of interviews or who are the Judges those have given interviews and what they had stated was mentioned in the report.

    6) The specific comments made on the Acting Chief Justice that he appears to have merely advised the lawyers to disperse peacefully, the soft-pedaling policy followed by the Madras High Court Judges has led to the present piquant situation are all uncharitable, unwarranted and outside the scope of the order of the Supreme Court. In such unpleasant and unexpected turn of events, it is but natural that no judge could have acted in a better way than the dignified way it was handled by the Madras High Court Judges, especially by the Acting Chief Justice.

    7) The report says that “once the policemen were given the order to lathi charge the unruly mob of lawyers to quell them it would appear that the police interpreted it as a license to unleash mayhem at will”. This is purely a surmise of the Committee. The Committee should confine itself to what it has seen, heard or happened. Strangely, the Committee does not mention who has given the order to lathi charge.

    8) The report is emphatic on the rampage of the police who came in armed with lathis, wore helmets and shields. The police have barged into the Court rooms of the Judges of the Small Causes Court and Family Court within the High Court complex and indulged in deliberate destruction of the tables, chairs, fans, computers, Xerox machine, and other articles. Further they went to the lawyers’ chambers not only in the High Court premises but in Linghi Chetty Street, Thambu Chetty street, Armenian street, Sunkurama Chetty Street, Kondichetty Street and Baker Street in the vicinity of the High Court, systematically barged into their chambers, caused damage and beaten up some of the lawyers. It is reported that even the lady lawyers or children’s creche were not spared. When this is so, the report does not specifically name the Police Officers at whose command the police have resorted to riots and unruly violence. Surprisingly when so much violence was reportedly resorted to by the Police in the report, the Committee gives a clean-chit to the Police commissioner “As far as the Commissioner of Police is concerned, I do not think that any blame can be laid at his door”. It is sad to note that the Committee which does not spare the lawyers or even the judges of the Madras High Court had shown such a soft-corner to the Police Commissioners who alone should be blamed for the police excesses on 19.02.2009.
    9) Justice Srikrishna in his report says that the Bar Councils have not been acting as an effective regulatory body of their professional conduct and suggests that it would be ideal that the Supreme Court should take this opportunity to exercise its extra-ordinary Constitutional powers and lay down sufficient guidelines for the behavior of the lawyers within and without the Court premises and further that Advocates Act needs to be amended. If this is so, it is not understood why Justice Srikrishna does not make similar suggestions to discipline the Police who have reportedly caused the havoc in the entire episode on 19.02.2009.
    10) Besides Mr. Justice Srikrishna failed to report the attacks of the Police causing serious physical injuries to about seven judges including Justices Sudhakar, Arumuga Perumal Adityan and Suguna.

    Even there are many contradictory incidents that the Police Commissioner was present in the High Court premises prior to 4.30 p.m. on 19.02.2009 according to an FIR, whereas the report is categorical that the Commissioner is present only after 17.14 hrs.

    It is not clear as to how Justice Srikrishna could withdraw from the Committee by merely submitting an interim report. Who will submit the final report?

    These comments on the report demonstrate how the Committee went wrong on various issues and how the report is biased and one-sided. This type of reports will only rub the lawyers on the wrong side and aggravate the situation unnecessarily.

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