"Urgent Need To Enact Advocates Protection Law": Bombay High Court While Denying Pre-Arrest Bail To Man Booked For Assaulting Lawyer

While denying anticipatory bail to a man booked for assaulting and pressuring an advocate from appearing in a criminal case for a litigant, the Bombay High Court said that there is an 'urgent' need of enacting a comprehensive legislation to provide protection to Advocates. 

Single-judge Justice Madhav Jamdar denied anticipatory bail to one Kiran Kahandal, a resident of Nashik district, who along with some of his aides, had assaulted an advocate and even damaged his office for the reason that the said lawyer was to appear for a litigant - Date family, in a criminal case they lodged against the Kahandal family members.

However, the Kahandal family members assaulted, the complainant lawyer, damaged his computer etc and threatened him not to appear for the Date family in the criminal litigation between the two families.

The judge said the case was too serious as an advocate was assaulted merely because he was representing a litigant. 

"This is a very serious case where an Advocate, who is representing the party and who is the Officer of the Court, has been pressurised to withdraw his appearance from those proceedings and that, when he refused to do so, he was assaulted," the judge observed. 

In the present case, the judge noted that the complainant advocate was representing the Date family in the civil and criminal proceedings which are pending against the Kahandal family members. The judge noted that one of the co-accused in the present case has given a statement showing involvement of the applicant Kiran in the assault case of the advocate. 

"The statement, which is part of the chargesheet, prima facie shows the involvement of the present Applicant in serious crime of threat and assault on the First Informant who is appearing as Advocate for said Date family. This is a very serious case where, an Advocate, who is representing a party, was not only pressurised to withdraw his appearance but he has been assaulted. In fact, this case shows that there is urgent need of enacting comprehensive legislation to provide adequate protection to Advocates, who are the Officers of the Court," Justice Jamdar remarked. 

With these observations, the bench dismissed the anticipatory bail to Kiran.

Appearance:

Advocates Chaitanya Pendse, Sachin Kadam and Khushi Rawlani appeared for the Applicant.

Additional Public Prosecutor SM Yadav represented the State.

Advocates Sanjeev Deore, Shamshad Ali Hashmi, Aditya Deore and Suchita J Pawar represented the Complainant.