KOCHI: TENSION prevailed on the High Court premises on Tuesday after a group of lawyers attempted to manhandle media persons covering the court proceedings.
And irked by the lawyers’ unruly behaviour, the journalists took out a protest march to Kerala High Court Advocates Association building near High Court. They also lodged a complaint with Acting Chief Justice Thottathil B Radhakrishnan, Registrar Asok Menon and Advocate General Sudhakara Prasad.
The trouble began when a group of lawyers attempted to manhandle a senior reporter of an English daily, who had filed a byline story on Tuesday on the arrest of disgraced Government Pleader Advocate Dhanesh Manjooran.
On Tuesday as the correspondent was in the court to cover the proceedings in the case relating to Advocate Manjooran, an advocate asked him to go out.
The Advocate then took the journalist to a group of advocates, who were waiting outside near the stairway. On seeing the scribe, the advocates greeted him with filthy language and threatened him with dire consequences, if he filed any more reports in the case against Manjooran. They also forced him down to the ground floor and later shoved him out of the HC premises.By 4.30 pm, another group of advocates came to attack the DC reporters and fellow journalists, who were seated in the media enclosure.
Physical assault
They even physically assaulted senior advocates who tried to calm things down. It was in the wake of this that the journalists took out a protest march from Ernakulam Press Club to the office of High Court Advocates Association. The protest march was led by Ernakulam Press Club office-bearers K Ravikumar, Sasikanth and Dileep Dasan.