Advocates’ Strikes: Supreme Court Proposes To Constitute Grievance Redressal Committees Consisting Of CJ Of Every HC With 4 Senior Judges

Regarding the constitution of grievances redressal committees to avert the situation of lawyers having to resort to strikes to raise their problems,  the Supreme Court today proposed to constitute such committees consisting of the Chief Justice of every High Court along with four senior judges.

"We will say High Courts should have grievance redressal committees consisting of the Chief Justice and 4 senior judges", Justice MR Shah said while reserving its order in the matter.

The Bench, which also consisted of Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah, was hearing a suo motu case regarding the rampant advocates’ strikes across the country, which resulted in disruption of court work.

In March, the Bar Council of India on agreed before the Supreme Court to suggest the nature of grievances which can be considered by the Grievance Redressal Committees, which are proposed to be set up at local levels to avert the strikes by lawyers.

Senior Advocate Manan Mishra, Chairman of the BCI had told the Supreme Court regarding the suggestion previously.

In 2021, the Supreme Court mulled the constitution of grievance committees at local levels to address the problem of lawyers' strikes.

“This has already been stated by this Court at least10 times; not to go strike”, the Court remarked while adding that the committees were for the individual High Courts to consider.

On February 28, 2020, the Supreme Court, taking a serious note of the fact that despite consistent decisions of the Court, the lawyers/Bar Associations go on strikes, had taken suo moto cognisance and issued notices to the Bar Council of India and all the State Bar Councils to suggest the further course of action and to give concrete suggestions to deal with the problem of strikes/abstaining the work by the lawyers.

The suo motu action of the Court came while dismissing an appeal filed by the District Bar Association Dehradun against a judgment of the Uttarakhand High Court which declared the lawyers' strikes illegal.

In that judgement, a bench comprising Justices Arun Mishra and M R Shah categorically had held that boycott of courts by advocates was illegal, and cannot be justified as an exercise of right to freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India.

Case Title: District Bar Association Dehradun Versus Ishwar Shandilya And Ors | Ma 859/2020 In Slp(C) No. 5440/2020 X