Boycott leaves litigants in a bind

The call for indefinite boycott of courts by Bangalore Advocates Association (BAA) put litigants in a bind.

Justice MF Saldanha, former high court judge, said: “Owing to the call for the indefinite boycott, the public will lose all the confidence and faith in court proceedings. Also, the image of the legal fraternity, which has already been affected, will be further tarnished. All the court cases seek urgent remedies—somebody is waiting for a bail and someone else is waiting for an injunction.

“Owing to the boycott, there will be a further delay in disposals of cases. It will ultimately lead to a piling up of cases. For example, if every court on an average disposes 15 cases per day, then the disposal for about 100 to 150 courts will be about 5,000 to 10,000 cases. Hence because of the boycott, there will be more backlog of cases. Ultimately, the litigants are going to suffer.”

High court advocate AV Amarnathan said: “The indefinite boycott has definitely caused problems to the clients, especially in interim injunctions and orders and also in respect of bail matters.”

Former chairman of Karnataka State Bar Council Sadashiva Reddy said: “Owing to the boycott, litigants are at the receiving end. They are definitely going to face severe problems. For example, if a client’s anticipatory bail is pending and the lawyer is not there getting it for him/her, then he/she may live in fear of getting arrested any time. We are responsible for the litigants, their time and trust on us. The clients can drag us to the consumer forum. However, we will explain our problems to our litigants and hope for their support. As bar council members, we stand by the boycott called by BAA. We want an answer to why atrocities were meted out on us by the police and media.”