The ongoing ‘cease-work’ protest organised by the Odisha High Court Bar Association took an ugly turn on Monday, 29 October, as protesting members clashed with a group of lawyers belonging to the BJD Legal Front, outside the high court.
This comes after the Front had withdrawn its support to the protest on 27 October.
The Front had withdrawn its support after the Bar Association lawyers had announced that they would burn effigies of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik across the state, if their demands were not met by 30 October.
On 28 August, lawyer Debi Prasanna Pattnaik was allegedly beaten up by three policemen in Nuabazar area of Cuttack. The next day, lawyers from the Odisha HC Bar Association held a protest and gheraoed the office of the Regional Divisional Commissioner, demanding the arrest of the concerned policemen.
Following the violent protest by the lawyers, Cuttack DCP Akhileswar Singh had suspended two constables and one havildar for their alleged involvement in the incident.
A three-judge bench headed by former Chief Justice Dipak Misra had ordered the Odisha HC Bar Association member lawyers to ‘resume court work’, while hearing a petition filed by journalist Abhijit Iyer Mitra, on 26 September.
Mitra, who was facing an arrest by Odisha police due to his alleged derogatory remarks against the people of Odisha, had pleaded that due to the strike he was not able to move the Odisha HC.
The lawyers continued the protest, defying the SC order as they were ‘not given an opportunity to be heard.’
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