NEW DELHI: Days after the raid at the office of advocate Mehmood Pracha and the police assault on an advocate in Etah in Uttar Pradesh, the Supreme Court Bar Association has condemned the action and termed it a malicious act which defeats the right of an advocate to practice his profession without fear or favour.
“A search and seizure conducted by the police at the premises of an advocate in a proceeding not pertaining to or relating to a Member of the Bar is a malicious act which defeats the rights of an advocate to practice his profession without fear or favour. Such actions are intimidatory and designed to abuse the due process by coercing an advocate to succumb to police threats and methods unheard of in legal annals. Such...in the teeth of the specific provisions of law which recognise the client lawyer relationship and protects all correspondence between the advocate and his client,” SCBA said.
“The seizures of confidential information which is protected by lawyer client privilege, in a search conducted by the very police authorities who are prosecuting the lawyer’s clients, will prejudicially affect the rights and guarantees of the accused. It is illegal and contravenes all canons of protection available to a client and his lawyers,” the SCBA statement read.
On December 24 police raided the office of Pracha to search for incriminating documents in connections to Delhi riots. and metadata of outbox of the official email address of Pracha’s law firm.
A Delhi court directed that the entire search video footage carried out two days ago to be preserved with court’s seal. “Such an arbitrary exercise to access an Advocate’s personal digital devices is a grave and egregious violation of privacy of any citizen and that of a member of the Bar who is engaged to act for his client. It does not augur well as such actions are in the teeth of the protections and privileges granted by law to lawyers to carry out their professional callings without fear or favour,” it said.