Darvesh Yadav murder: SC declines PIL seeking CBI probe

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to entertain a PIL for a CBI probe into the murder of Bar Council of Uttar Pradesh chairperson Darvesh Yadav within days of her election, in Agra court premises on June 12 by her male colleague.

The top court said such type of specific plea could be filed before the jurisdictional high court.

“All the prayers are pertaining to the incident and the Uttar Pradesh Bar Council. You have to approach the Allahabad HC if you are concerned with the specific incident,” a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and B R Gavai told advocate Kumud Lata Das, appearing for a woman lawyer, Indu Kaul.

The petitioner, for her part, insisted that there were prayers for providing general security for women lawyers in the district court premises.

On this, the court said we will give you the liberty to file a separate petition for raising such issues.

“Do your homework and file a separate PIL. We are giving you liberty. Is HC powerless to grant such relief,” the bench said.

The petitioner, Kaul sought a direction to the Centre, Uttar Pradesh government and the regulatory body of advocates, the Bar Council of India to pay compensation to the family members of the deceased, advocate and formulate a social security scheme for women lawyers.

“The condition of lady advocates is vulnerable in all courts across the country. A lady advocate has to fight her illness, old age, family conditions throughout her life, as there are no social security measures provided by the bar councils or associations,” her plea stated.

The petition contended that the male insecurity might have been the motive for killing Darvesh by her colleague Manish Sharma, who also died subsequently by gunshot injuries inflicted upon himself by him, as she broke the glass ceiling by intruding and trespassing into the men's domain.

Ironically on June 12, Chairman, Bar Council of India Manan Kumar Mishra issued a press release demanding that a compensation of Rs 50 lakhs for the family of Darvesh, besides strict security of members of the Bar across country, instead of paying it from its own Advocate Welfares’ Fund collected from the enrollment advocates’ across the country through respective state bar councils, it said.

The Bar Councils from different states and Bar Council of India collect a huge amount of money on the sale of Advocates’ Welfare Stamp affixed mandatorily on every 'Vakalatnama' irrespective of the fact that the case is criminal, jail petition, of women, old and indigent persons and/or PIL, it pointed out.

Among others, the petitioner said the Bar Associations need to provide protection to lady advocates by deploying police officials in the chamber blocks.