CHENNAI: “I will pass orders in accordance with law,’’ Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) in Egmore told leaders of various Bar Associations on Monday.
When ACMM Killivalavan took up the chargesheets filed by the CBI in connection with the advocates-police clash on February 19, 2009, TN Advocates Association president S Prabakaran raised strong objections. The ACMM said he was yet to go through the chargesheets.
Postponing the matter till Thursday, Killivalavan told the court packed with restless advocates, that he would pass orders (whether to take on file the case or not) in accordance with law. Prabakaran and Madras High Court advocates Association (MHAA) president RC Paul Kanakaraj later told journalists at the High Court premises that they would resort to indefinite boycott of courts from Friday, if the ACMM fails to pass an order rejecting or returning the chargesheets.
The CBI itself could very well withdraw the `biased’ chargesheeets, they said. The Joint Action Committee (JAC) will meet again on Thursday and announce the decision, if no `favourable’ order was passed by the ACMM by then, they added.
Meanwhile, the TNAA, represented by its secretary M Basker, MHAA by its secretary M Velmurugan and the Women Lawyers Association (WLA) by its secretary V Nalini, filed applications before the ACMM requesting him to return the chargesheets.
The final report could be returned on the grounds of clumsiness, lacking in critical details, discrepancies, loopholes, deliberate omission and mis-interpretation of law by the CBI, the petitions said.
Vehemently arguing on behalf of the applicants, Prabakaran alleged that the CBI had deliberately and wantonly excluded the top police officials -- K Radhakrishnan, AK Viswanathan, M Ramasubramani and Prem Anand Sinha -- against whom a division bench of the Madras High Court had ordered initiation of contempt proceedings for their omissions and commissions. The senior counsel, who appeared for the four officers, tendered an unconditional apology, but the bench had rejected the same, Prabakaran pointed out. There were also video clippings along with photographs, documentary and oral evidence to prove that the police had unleashed unprecedented violence against the advocates.
In their counter-affidavits before the Bench earlier, the top police officers had shifted the blame on each other and finally, the bench had held all the four squarely responsible for the violence, Prabakaran said adding that the CBI chargesheets were biased and one-sided and hence liable to be rejected.