Lawyers stop work in protest. Pix: Srinivas

Jamshedpur, Aug. 7: The civil court remained paralysed today as members of Jamshedpur Bar Association abstained from attending the court.

They were all protesting against the fact that the “disappeared” senior lawyer Sadhan Chatterjee remained traceless even six days after he went missing.

A decision to this effect had been taken by an executive committee meeting on Monday.

The aggrieved lawyers turned up at the bar building, but did not attend the court, following what is called a “pen-down” strike.

After a brief meeting at the bar building, a delegation of lawyers led by Jamshedpur Bar Association president, advocate M.P. Banerjee, marched to the East Singhbhum superintendent of police (SP)’s office.

There they submitted a memorandum, demanding early detection of the missing lawyer’s whereabouts.

The SP, Pankaj Kumar Darad has assured the delegation that he would do everything possible to trace the senior lawyer.

He claimed he had already sent a team of police officials to Nadia district in Bengal.

Moreover, the SP said that he would press an artist on the job to draw a sketch of the mysterious person with whom Chatterjee left a week ago.

The 67-year-old advocate is missing ever since he went out of his residence at Adarshnagar, Phase No 7, Sonari on the morning of July 31.

Little is known about the the person who was the mysterious morning visitor at Chatterjee’s house.

Addressed as Ray “babu”, he had been to Chatterjee’s house that morning and had taken the elderly lawyer out on his scooter. According to advocate H.K. Chowdhary, general secretary, Jamshedpur Bar Association, advocate Chatterjee’s wife had seen the mysterious visitor while he was busy talking to her husband over a civil case. This, the delegation felt, could be utilised by the police to trace the missing lawyer.

“As she had known the man by face, she would be able to help the artist to make a portrait, which would be circulated in Jamshedpur and outside, along with Chatterjee’s photograph,” said Chowdhary.

“Once the identity of the strange man is established, it would be easy to find out Chatterjee’s whereabouts,” he added. According to Chowdhary, someone from Nadia district had sent a man to Chatterjee to attend to a civil case pending at Nadia court.

The bar association representatives failed to pin the exact reason behind Chatterjee’s disappearance.

However, they ruled out the possibility of kidnapping for ransom, which was the motive behind the recent sensational kidnapping of Viswanath Garg, an industrialist co-incidently based in Sonari as well. The high-profile Garg case was cracked by the police, and the victim reached home without the family having to pay ransom.

In another development, the state Bar Council decided to file an application of habeas corpus before the high court to locate Chatterjee.The Jamshedpur Bar Association had sent a letter to the Council to intervene in the matter.