The District Bar Association. Picture by Bhola Prasad

Jamshedpur, March 22: Stung by the high court order directing lawyers to sit inside the Bar building only, the lawyer fraternity here has pointed out that the court should first ensure that there was enough space for all of them inside the building.

A majority of the lawyers observed that sitting outside the Bar building was more of a compulsion than choice.

Several of them claimed that lawyers sitting under trees or makeshift tents on the court premises was a common feature across the country.

The scene hardly varies on ideal court premises, irrespective of whether it is a lower court or a high court, they said.

The lawyers unanimously pointed out that they were not at all encroachers and that sitting under trees or makeshift tents was not tantamount to encroachment.

Senior advocate Tapas Mitra, reacting to a question on the ongoing ruckus, said: ?Technically, putting a table and a couple of chairs under a tree on any civil court premises does not amount to encroachment. As far as the question of sitting outside the Bar building is concerned, it is an outcome of space constraint. People see the lawyers using the open space outside the Bar building during the pleasant weather, but they perhaps do not realise the pain of sitting there under scorching sun and heavy showers.?

With this statement, he expressed his solidarity with the members of the District Bar Association.

District Bar Association secretary H.K. Chowdhury said the stand of the judiciary on removing encroachment from the court premises is good, provided there is adequate space for accommodating the existing number of lawyers.

Giving an account of the accommodation problem, Chowdhury said: ?When the new court complex was under construction, the total number of lawyers under the district Bar Association was around 700, but the number swelled up to about 1,600 when it was inaugurated on July 31, 2004. As a result, a sizeable number of Bar members have to sit under trees outside the Bar building.?

?We had demanded the Jharkhand High Court authorities to provide us a separate plot of land, measuring 5,000 square feet, on the court premises to set up an extension of the Bar building for accommodating the rest of the lawyers,? said the District Bar Association secretary.

He also stressed that the state government had provided the fund for the construction of the Bar building to accommodate the lawyers following an agreement between the District Bar Association and the state government.

?Nothing was mentioned about the canteen in the said agreement, but unfortunately, the canteen issue is being blown out of proportions,? said Chowdhury.

Another Bar Association member S.C. Chowdhury observed that a section of people may think that the lawyers sit outside because they can have an easy access to clients, but the ground reality is that most of the successful lawyers sit inside the Bar building.

?Some lawyers prefer to sit under the trees because they cannot climb the stairs in the Bar building. There is an acute space problem too. The rule of first-come-first-serve for allotting space during the inauguration of the new court complex in 2004 was the befitting example to justify the gravity of the lawyers? problem,? said Chowdhury.