Cuttack, Feb. 13: Litigants suffered for the second time in a fortnight when lawyers of Orissa High Court stayed away from the court today, crossing swords with police over the alleged molestation of a lady inspector.
The High Court Bar Association decided to cease work yet again to protest against the "false case" lodged by the lady inspector against two lawyers, both association members. The cease work followed the demand for "an impartial inquiry" into the incident by the Odisha Police Association yesterday.
The lawyers had boycotted court work for a week over the delay in the arrest of the culprit involved in the assault on one of their colleagues in Bhubaneswar last week. The cease work was called off after he was arrested.
The inspector lodged a complaint at Lalbag police station on February 9 against two lawyers for allegedly sexually harassing her inside a lift on the high court premises. Acting on it, a case had been registered against the two lawyers under the Indian Penal Code's sections 354 (outraging of modesty of a woman) and 354 (A) (sexual harassment of a woman).
Bar association secretary Umesh Chandra Behura said: "We resolved today to abstain from court work for two days as a mark of protest against the false case lodged by the lady police inspector." On February 10, it claimed that the CCTV footage of the lift did not corroborate with the allegations made by the cop.
The police association president, on the other hand, yesterday placed a demand before a news conference that a police officer - senior to the victim and preferably not below the rank of deputy superintendent of police - to be assigned the job of investigating the case.
"Tomorrow at 2pm, our general body will meet to take a decision on the future course of action," Behura said.
Hundreds of cases, including a large number of bail pleas and anticipatory bail applications, went without hearing today, as proceedings remained paralysed at the high court.
Among many other cases, the court could not proceed with the batch of petitions that had challenged the Registration (Odisha Amendment) Act, 2013, that had made land patta or Record of Rights compulsory for registration of transaction of immovable properties. A patta is a legal document issued by the government in the name of the actual owner of a particular plot of land. Eleven petitions had, in May 2014, challenged the new rule, which intended to check fraudulent transactions of landed property in the state. It was enforced on April 25, 2014.
The petitions were taken up for analogous hearing. After languishing for several months they were listed for hearing today and the court was to decide on the validity of the new rule, while taking stock of the counter affidavit the state government had been asked to file.
The court also could not proceed with the PIL on the unabashed encroachment on municipal land along a 1km stretch in Balangir town.
Advocate A.K. Mishra alleged that the Balangir municipality officials had done nothing towards eviction except for carrying out planning for the encroached land on pen and paper and had been swindling funds over the years.
