Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeNationSupreme Court Bar Association backs away from action against Kapil Sibal, Neeraj...

Supreme Court Bar Association backs away from action against Kapil Sibal, Neeraj Kishan Kaul


New Delhi The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) has backed away from initiating action against Kapil Sibal and Neeraj Kishan Kaul, calling off a general body meeting fixed for Thursday to decide on a resolution moved by members of the Bar against the two senior advocates. The move came a day after former attorney general KK Venugopal wrote to the SCBA president, senior advocate Vikas Singh, urging him not to go ahead with a resolution that could create “two factions in the bar”.

The resolution had accused Kapil Sibal and Neeraj Kishan Kaul for not showing solidarity with SCBA president, senior advocate Vikas Singh, on a matter related to the allotment of land for lawyers’ chambers. (ANI)

The executive committee (EC) of SCBA convened an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss the issue, and decided to call off the proposed meeting of the general body.

“The EC of SCBA, keeping in view the letter of KK Venugopal and in the larger interest of the Bar, has authorised the undersigned to write a letter to the bar regarding the decision of the EC to recall the notice for the general body meeting,” a note on an SCBA letterhead, signed by Vikas Singh, said.

Singh asked the SCBA members not to “precipitate” the issue further.

The resolution had accused Sibal and Kaul for not showing solidarity with Singh on a matter related to the allotment of land for lawyers’ chambers — a March 2 incident in which the Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud reprimanded Singh for pushing a case indecorously, and Sibal and Kaul later apologised on SCBA’s behalf to assuage the court.

The note released by Singh on Wednesday noted that the SCBA petition was now listed for hearing on Friday before a special bench of the CJI and justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and PS Narasimha, thus fulfilling the Bar’s demand that the matter be heard. In this event too, the note said, the meeting on Thursday was called off, since SCBA’s EC had no personal agenda against anyone, and was only concerned that the stand of the Bar should not be diluted.

On March 2, Singh appeared before a bench headed by CJI Chandrachud and complained about the matter related to allotment of land for lawyers’ chamber not being heard despite getting mentioned on several occasions. Objecting to the harsh tone used by Singh, who said at one point that lawyers may start protesting outside the homes of judges, the CJI replied that he will “not be cowed down” by such conduct. Sibal and Kaul, who were present in the court, apologised to the CJI for the exchange.

Later, the same day, SCBA members moved a resolution seeking apology from the two senior lawyers for “trying to dilute the efforts of the Executive Committee led by president”, and called for an EC meeting on March 16 to pass a resolution against them.

Venugopal, in a letter to Singh on Tuesday, said that the apology offered by the two senior lawyers was to “maintain cordial relationship” between the bench and the Bar.

“I sincerely request you not to allow these two resolutions so that this event may not explode into a situation where there may be two camps with enmity between the members inter se, which may not be conducive to the peace and well being of the SCBA,” the letter read.

SCBA’s petition before the top court, filed in August 2022, seeks a direction to the Union urban development ministry to allot 1.33 acres of land (earlier occupied by Appu Ghar) to the Supreme Court to be used for chamber blocks for lawyers.



Source link

RELATED ARTICLES

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

- Advertisment -

Most Popular

Recent Comments