New Delhi, July 27: The office bearers of Thrissur Bar Association (TBA) have tendered unconditional apology to the Supreme Court, which had initiated contempt proceedings against them for suspending a lawyer for refusing to obey court boycott call given by the association in last December.

A bench comprising Justice M B Shah and Justice A R Lakshmanan, which had rejected their statement of apology and observed that it would go ahead with the contempt proceedings, last week accepted their unconditional apology as they accepted that they had acted against the apex court's order banning strike or boycott of courts by advocates.
TBA had passed a resolution on December 16, 2002, asking the lawyers to boycott the court on December 18 in accordance with the directive of the Bar Council of India (BCI) to protest against the amendments to National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) Act providing for Lok Adalats in every public service department of the government. On December 17 last year, the Supreme Court declared the strike by lawyers as illegal and had held that a lawyer who held brief for a client could not abstain from attenting the court persuant to a call for strike.
Senior advocate K B Veerachandra Menon, practicing at Thrissur was suspended by the TBA as he refused to go by the association's call to boycott courts on December 18 and attended court.



As he was suspended for attending the court, he had approached the Supreme Court through advocate Romy Chacko seeking initiation of contempt proceedings against the TBA office bearers.


Bureau Report