Calcutta, Feb. 28 :    Calcutta, Feb. 28:  High drama was staged at Calcutta High Court on Wednesday morning. Lawyers boycotted the court of Justice Barin Ghosh 'indefinitely' after he allegedly accused a section of advocates of being corrupt. Following the judge's alleged remark, lawyers present inside the courtroom rose in protest and demanded that he withdraw his comment. But with Ghosh refusing to retract, the advocates staged a walkout. Trouble started just after 10 am when an advocate, Kalyan Banerjee, sought to draw Ghosh's attention to an 'urgent' petition, requesting him to take up the matter for hearing. But the judge observed he had often found that such petitions were not as 'urgent as they were made out to be'. Banerjee, however, reiterated his appeal to the judge. It was at this point that Ghosh suddenly put the petition aside and remarked that most appellate lawyers were 'dishonest'. Banerjee protested the judge's observation and requested him to replace the word 'dishonest' by 'incorrect'. But Ghosh stuck to his stand. At this, Banerjee and other lawyers left the court and urged the Bar Association to convene an emergency meeting. At a meeting held later in the day, the Bar Association resolved that lawyers would 'boycott Justice Ghosh's court indefinitely'. The Association also demanded that Ghosh withdraw his observation about appellate lawyers. A copy of the resolution was sent to the chief justice of Calcutta High Court. Thereafter, a group of lawyers assembled in front of Justice Ghosh's court and informed other advocates about the resolution. Ghosh, however, remained in office, and passed a few scheduled orders, before leaving around 3.30 pm. Uttam Majumdar, former secretary of the Bar Association, said if the relationship between judge and lawyer 'deteriorates', common litigants will have to suffer. 'This kind of incident has happened twice before in the past 10 years. In one instance, a judge even had to withdraw his comments. Shouldn't lawyers have the right to expect to be shown a minimum respect by the judges?' demanded Majumdar. In 1993, Supradip Roy, an advocate, suggested in a Bar Association meeting that lawyers related to a judge should not be allowed to appear before that particular court. A resolution had also been adopted to this effect. 'The resolution had angered one of the judges of that time, Paritosh Mukherjee, who abused me in open court and asked me to leave the room,' recounted Roy. Subsequently, the Bar Association had met and lawyers had decided to boycott Mukherjee's court. 'The agitation continued for a month. A committee comprising two sitting judges was set up, which ruled that Justice Mukherjee would have to apologise. He apologised and the boycott was withdrawn,' Roy added. In 1997, in the court of the then Chief Justice P.D. Desai, a verbal application was moved on behalf of then president of the Bar Association Arun Prakash Chatterjee, alleging that a sitting judge was 'not behaving properly' with advocates. Chief Justice Desai had refused to hear the matter. The lawyers then decided to boycott his court.