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Don’t act as ‘paid Goondas’: Madras HC tells advocates resorting to illegalities

Team SoOLEGAL 19 Jun 2018 3:30pm

Don’t act as ‘paid Goondas’: Madras HC tells advocates resorting to illegalities

While hearing a petition in a case involving eviction following non-payment of rent, the Madras High Court made scathing remarks about the conduct of Advocates who opt to act as “paid goondas”.

What sparked off the dispute between the petitioner and the respondents is non-payment of rental arrears amounting to about Rs 25 lakhs by petitioner’s father’s, despite which he continued to have possession of certain property.

In his petition, the petitioner claimed that an attempt was made to forcibly evict him from the said premises.

In fact, Photo and video evidence were produced before the Court that clearly indicated that an advocate had used force to vacate the petitioner of his property on March 14, 2018.

Though, the petitioner filed complaints with the police, but on not getting any response he approached the Madras Court.

Also, the Court noted that an FIR was finally registered on the same day the HC bench of Justice N Kirubakaran and R Pongiappan began hearing the case. The bench also observed that the police had delayed lodging the FIR despite an earlier direction of the Court on June 5.

In an interim order passed by the court, it remarked, “Merely because the persons claiming themselves to be ‘advocates’ are involved, they cannot be above the law. Lawyers, as the nomenclature shows, they are supposed to follow the law and they have to safeguard the law and the rights of the citizens”.

The court further emphasized on the duty of lawyers, which is to safeguard the rights of the people, and also expressed its discontentment over the incident.

“It is shameful to note that these so-called advocates play the role of ‘Paid goondas’”, the court said.

On court’s instruction to inquire into the matter, Senior Advocate R Singaravelan on behalf of the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry produced an enrolment application of the suspected delinquent advocate before the HC bench.

After comparing the application with the previously submitted visual evidence, the Court identified that one S Rajkumar was the Advocate complained of. However, the court noted that the problem does not end with this case.

Referring to such recurring incidents, the Court observed:

“This incident is only a tip of an iceberg, wherein the ‘so-called advocates’ hand in glove with the police are violating the rights of poor citizens, contrary to the expectations that the police and advocates will safeguard their rights. When the Police and the ‘so-called advocates’ join together and commit offences, the poor citizens are left with no other option except to approach this Court.

Therefore, this court has to necessarily safeguard the citizens and cannot afford to take a lenient view merely [because] the accused are the ‘so-called advocates’.”

The court then opined that a solution has to be found to resolve this issue in public interest.

The matter is due to be taken up by the HC bench today afternoon. 



Tagged: Madras High Court   FIR   Paid Goondas  
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