Reported By: Ankita Bhardwaj

Strikes among lawyers are not an alien thing now. After such a heated movement by the Advocates of Rajasthan, there comes the state of Madhya Pradesh. The advocates of the State are on strike to protest against a policy envisaged by the administration of the High Court to dispose of long-pending cases in district courts.

The protest revolves around the 25 Debt Scheme introduced by the High Court on its administrative side in October 2021. The objective of the scheme being to resolve the issue of old cases which have been pending for many years, and have not been taken up. The policy requires that district courts need to identify and dispose off the 25 oldest cases in each court within three months.It is contented that this order will cause havoc as disposing of 25 cases within 3 months is impossible.

“A total of 92,000 lawyers participated in the strike which has expanded from 19 districts in the State to 52 districts. Also, the pendency of cases has gone up to 2 lakh within a month” the Dainik Bhasker report stated.

The Apex Court has passed several directions for the statutory bodies to ensure that  no strikes/ boycotts and abstentions take place in any Bar Association. These directions were ordered to be brought to the knowledge of all judges working in each district, so that they may take necessary action. The directions are as under: 

• Undisposed cases out of the oldest 25 cases by the end of the year 2022 be carry forwarded to the first quarter of the year 2023 which is in addition to the 25 oldest cases of first quarter of 2023;

• Where a judge holding a link court for any period, the list of 25 oldest cases be prepared from the pending cases of regular/link court proportionately in accordance with the number of working days of link/regular court;

• Cases under Section 125 CrPC for maintenance (excluding cases under section 125 sub-section (3) CrPC for recovery of maintenance) and Land Acquisition Reference cases are also included in the list of 25 oldest cases.

• The cases in which the proceedings are stayed by the Hon’ble High Court of Hon’ble Supreme Court, such cases be excluded from the list of oldest 25 cases and a separate list of stayed matters be prepared.

Amidst this, Chairman of the Bar Council of India (BCI) Manan Kumar Mishra wrote to the Madhya Pradesh State Bar Council on March 22 calling for a report on the status of the strike and court boycotts across the State and also requested the State Bar Council to discuss the same with the High Court authorities and find a solution at the earliest.