BHUBANESWAR: The lawyers of Bhubaneswar Bar Association (BBA) called off their nine-day cease-work here on Friday after submitting a representation to the acting Chief Justice of Orissa High Court Pradeep Mohanty.
Judicial work in the District Sessions Court, Khurda, will resume on August 4. It remained closed due to prolonged agitation by lawyers over an alleged police assault on one of their brethren. The decision to resume work was taken by BBA’s executive committee based on the report presented by its action committee on Friday.
The action committee, which was formed on Monday, probed into the protest by BBA members who were unhappy with the statement given by Nihar Ranjan Sethi, the alleged victim of police assault.
Sethi gave a statement on Monday expressing his satisfaction over State Government’s directive to Human Rights Protection Cell (HRPC) to probe the matter. This did not go down well with BBA members, who unanimously vetoed his request to call off the strike. The action committee, in its report submitted here on Friday, said that stringent action should be initiated against the lawyers who recorded adverse statements against the strike, BBA secretary Jayant Misra said.
The representation submitted by the association also demanded withdrawal of ‘false’ cases lodged by the police against some lawyers.
Commissioner of Police R P Sharma said they were not looking at withdrawing any case but all cases related to the lawyers’ agitation will be conducted in a transparent manner.