After Contempt Notice, Vishakhapatnam Bar Association Undertakes Before Supreme Court Not To Abstain From Court Work In Future

Pursuant to a contempt notice, the Vishakhapatnam Bar Association has filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court undertaking that it would not boycott and/or encourage lawyers to abstain from court work in future.

It may be recalled that a bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and AG Masih issued a contempt notice to the Association in July for abstaining from court work and thus preventing the Debts Recovery Tribunal (DRT) in Vishakhapatnam from functioning.

The order was passed in an SLP challenging the Andhra Pradesh High Court's order disposing of the petitioner's writ petition, which claimed that the DRT did not consider its Securitization Application of 2022 despite urgency.

It was noted that the Vishakhapatnam Bar Association repeatedly called for abstention from court work. Now the Association has filed an affidavit through its General Secretary, undertaking that no boycott calls would be made by it in future.

The affidavit states that the Association's current Executive Committee took charge on April 10, 2024 and the boycott call was resolved to be made by the previous Executive Committee (between December, 2023 to January, 2024).

Be that as it may, as the Court directed filing of an affidavit by office bearers of the Association, the Executive Committee held a meeting, where it "unanimously resolved not to boycott the courts at any time in future".

"I hereby affirm, state and undertake that the Vishakhapatnam Bar Association will not encourage or call for Boycott or to abstain from the Courts hereafter and in future also", says the affidavit filed by the Association's General Secretary.

With a prayer that the Court accept the undertaking, the Association has requested that the contempt notice be discharged.

Background

The challenge in the writ petition before the High Court was to a Sale Notice dated February 27, 2024, issued by the Assets Care & Reconstruction Enterprise Limited, proposing to auction the subject property on March 18, 2024.

When the Assets Care & Reconstruction Enterprise Limited issued the impugned Sale Notice on February 27, 2024, the petitioner filed an interim application in March 2024, seeking a stay of further proceedings pursuant to the notice. The stay application and the main Securitization Application were posted for April 19, 2024 due to the strike.

The petitioner's grievance was that, despite the imminent urgency, the applications have not been considered and no orders have been passed by the Tribunal. As a result, the petitioner claimed it could suffer irreparable loss and hardship and the Securitization Application could become infructuous.

Vide the impugned order, the Andhra Pradesh High Court disposed of the petition, directing the respondents not to take any coercive action in respect of the subject properties, subject to the petitioner depositing half of the amount indicated in the impugned auction notice within eight weeks.

Case Title: Superwhizz Professionals Pvt. Ltd. v. Union of India & Ors., Special Leave to Appeal (C) No. 11029/2024