The Allahabad High Court directed the Lucknow district judge and police commissioner to submit reports on the alleged assault of three Delhi-based lawyers and their client inside the Lucknow court premises, observing that if the allegations were true, they would amount to a serious obstruction of the administration of justice.
Three Delhi-based lawyers, including two women advocates, and their client were allegedly assaulted, abused and threatened inside the Lucknow district court premises while attempting to appear in a civil property dispute, prompting the Allahabad High Court on Tuesday to take serious note of the incident and direct the Lucknow district judge and police commissioner to submit detailed reports by Wednesday morning.
A special bench of Justices Rajan Roy and Manjive Shukla was constituted on the directions of the Chief Justice at 7 pm on Tuesday to hear the matter on an urgent basis.
The court observed that if the allegations were true, the incident would go beyond a mere criminal offence and amount to a serious obstruction of the administration of justice, which could not be tolerated.
The matter came before the court through an interim application filed by Delhi-based advocates Abhipsa Mohanty, Komal Agrawal and Ashutosh Srivastava, who claimed that they were attacked while attempting to file a vakalatnama on behalf of their client, Mohammad Shakir, in a civil property dispute.
According to the application, the matter was transferred to another courtroom after the original court was found vacant. However, the lawyers said that advocate Saurabh Kumar Verma and some of his associates prevented them from appearing in court and assaulted, abused and threatened them when they objected.
The petition further claimed that Shakir was brutally beaten, sustaining bleeding injuries, and that the advocates were warned against appearing in a case involving another lawyer. They claimed they were forced to take refuge inside a judge’s chamber before leaving the court premises through a staircase.
The applicants also said that a similar assault involving another litigant had taken place on April 30 in connection with the same property dispute, but no effective police action was taken.
India: Woman lawyer, team assaulted in court premises, Allahabad High Court seeks report
