The tussle between an NGO and a lawyer over who is representing Afzal Guru intensified with both the parties today claiming that the Parliament attack convict has asked them to handle his case.
The tussle between an NGO and a lawyer over who is representing Afzal Guru intensified with both the parties today claiming that the Parliament attack convict has asked them to handle his case.
After their separate meetings with Afzal in Tihar Jail yesterday, SAR Geelani, the working president of Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners (CRPP), and lawyer ND Pancholi claimed Afzal has authorised them to fight his case.
The two versions came out in the open after Pancholi claimed to the media as Afzal's counsel that he had petitioned the Supreme Court for expeditious disposal of his mercy plea as his "solitary confinement was worse than death".
Geelani provided a letter purportedly written by Afzal in which the death row prisoner said that Pancholi was not his counsel.
In the letter provided by Geelani, it says, "ND Pancholi is not my legal council (counsel)...Only SPDPR/CRPP is authorised to represent me... Pancholi was engaged by SPDPR/CRPP to visit me in jail. He has not represented me in any court anytime."
Pancholi said during his meeting with Afzal yesterday that the death row convict had given him in writing asking him to check with the registrar the status of his application in the Supreme Court.
He, however, said he did not want to create a controversy over the issue of representing Afzal.
"If Afzal does not want me as his lawyer, he can say that. I will not press for representing him. But I have a letter from him authorising me to check with SC registrar about the status of his application. Let Afzal tell me that he does not want me as his lawyer," Pancholi said.
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