Assault on advocate in Chikkamagalur: HC constitutes high-level panel

Following the assault on an advocate and to restore amiability among the bar, police and the district administration in Chikkamagalur, the Karnataka high court has constituted a high-level committee to place recommendations. On December 1, 2023, the high court had registered a suo motu petition in relation to the alleged assault on an advocate by the Chikkamagaluru town police.

“The Committee shall hold a meeting in the office of the Advocate General for the State of Karnataka, Bengaluru, on Saturday, the 09.12.2023 at 11.00 am and suggest means and ways to achieve enhancement of amiability between the stakeholders of administration of justice and the law and order agency of the state. The committee shall also submit recommendations for preventing the recurrence of dispute/difference between these stakeholders, in the best interest of the public at large,” a division bench, comprising Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice Krishna S Dixit, said in the order.

The meeting will be attended by Principal Secretary, Department of Home, The DG and IGP (Police Headquarters) or any of his nominee, not below the rank of IGP, senior advocate and former Advocate General Uday Holla, senior advocates Jayakumar S Patil, V Lakshminarayana, K N Phaneendra and D R Ravi Shankar, Vivek Subba Reddy, president of Advocates Association of Bengaluru and also president of Chikkamagaluru bar association.

The bench said the proceedings of the committee shall be shared with the court in a sealed cover on the next date of hearing. “…so that the same may prove to be profitable
inputs for the adjudication of the issues that are being debated in the petition,” the bench said.

During the previous hearing, senior advocates, representing Chikkamagaluru Bar Association, expressed anguish over the
protest staged by a section of the police in Chikkamagaluru and also placed the videographs/photographs of the same. “We also share the same anguish, the strict discipline being the first requirement of the police force; otherwise, it would be a case of fence swallowing the crop. What a section of the police staff has allegedly done is absolutely unacceptable to this court and to the civil society, to say the least. Since the learned Advocate General assures that the matter is being looked into seriously by higher-ups in the department, we do not, at this stage of the proceeding, deliberate more on the same,” the bench said.