Advocates Must Pay Toll Like Everyone Else, Can't Claim Special Treatment: Madras High Court Quashes Case Over Protest
The Madras High Court has quashed criminal proceedings against lawyers who staged a protest demanding that the Trichy-Chennai highway be made toll-free for advocates, holding that the demonstration was an exercise of their democratic right to protest and did not attract the ingredients of any criminal offence.The Court, however, stated that a road cannot be made toll-free for...
The Madras High Court has quashed criminal proceedings against lawyers who staged a protest demanding that the Trichy-Chennai highway be made toll-free for advocates, holding that the demonstration was an exercise of their democratic right to protest and did not attract the ingredients of any criminal offence.
The Court, however, stated that a road cannot be made toll-free for advocates specially.
Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy observed:
“The entire episode is nothing but an expression of their right to democratic protest, though for a bizarre reason. Merely because the petitioners are members of the Bar, they cannot be placed on a separate pedestal. When a toll is legally collected from the public, it must be paid by the members of the Bar as well".
The police had registered a case against the petitioner lawyers and filed the final report under Sections 189(2), 223, and 126(2) BNS, for the offences of unlawful assembly, disobedience to order promulgated by a public servant and wrongful restraint, respectively. The allegations against the petitioners and others was that being members of the Bar, they assembled without any permission and staged a protest demanding that the toll road between Trichy and Chennai be made free of cost for advocates.
The Court quashed the criminal case against the protesting lawyers, holding that their actions do not attract the ingredients of any criminal offence.
“A charge under Section 223 of the BNS, cannot be taken into consideration by this Court except by following the specific procedure prescribed under the BNSS. As far as the remaining two charges are concerned, the records reveal that there was no violence or disturbance to public order,” the court observed, adding, “No intention can be gathered from the materials placed along with the final report to suggest that the petitioners intended to commit any criminal offence.”
Case title: Rajkumar & Sreethar@Sridharan v The State represented by the Inspector of Police, Ulundurpet Police Station, Kallakurichi District & another,
Case No: CRL.OP.No.18935 of 2026 and CRL.MP.Nos.12613 & 12614 of 2026
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