Malda, Oct. 18: Members of the bar association here staged a demonstration on the district court premises today after the chief judicial magistrate denied bail to a lawyer, who was arrested from a gambling den.

With the agitation holding up work, district judge Prasanta Kumar Mahanti summoned the president of the association, Nikhil Gupta, and the secretary, Prabir Jha. Finally in the afternoon, the accused lawyer was granted bail with the intervention of Mahanti.

According to police, the lawyer, Sushil Mondol, was arrested from a gambling den last night when a team from the Gajole police station conducted a raid there. Seven others, including a karmadhakshya of the Gajole panchayat samiti, Joydeb Samaddar, of the CPM, were also arrested from the same place.

With members of the bar association putting pressure on the judges since the morning, subdivisional judicial magistrate Mukulika Sinha refused to grant bail to Mondol, resulting in the lawyers staging a protest at the court, venting their ire at the public prosecutor, Sujoy Mukherjee.

Mukherjee, however, said: “The lawyer was arrested while gambling at a rice dealer’s house. The police have a lot of evidences to prove his guilt and so I opposed the bail.”

Mahanti later asked the lawyers to move a fresh petition for bail, which was finally accepted.