Land mafia beats up advocate, HC intervenes

The Delhi High Court on Thursday asked the state government’s standing counsel to ensure that a case under proper penal provisions is registered against some land mafia, allegedly involved in beating up of a lawyer, who was brought to the court in a stretcher.

A bench of acting chief justice A K Sikri and justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw gave the direction to standing counsel (criminal) Pawan Sharma after the family members of 38-year-old advocate Sanjeev R Vashisht brought him to the court in a stretcher with one of his legs in cast and tell-tale beating marks over his body. The victim advocate’s mother, accompanied by her younger son Rajeev, submitted to the bench that her elder son was beaten up severely near Bhagat Singh College by some “goons” against whom he has been fighting a property case in a trial court.

Despite grievous injuries sustained by her son, the Malviya Nagar police has lodged an FIR under sections entailing lesser penal provisions, she told the court accusing the police of being in hand-in-gloves with the accused.