The Madhya Pradesh High Court has issued a show cause notice to the chairman of the State Bar Council and all other elected members of the State Bar Council, asking for an explanation as to why criminal contempt of court proceedings should not be initiated against them for compelling lawyers to abstain from judicial work.
The Single-judge Justice Atul Sreedharan said that the strike which was called by the the chairman and the elected members of the State Bar Council was violation and defiance of the order passed by the High Court on March 24 in a suo motu case initiated by the Court in wake of the strike.
The Justice thus ordered that the registry of the Court to register a criminal contempt of court case against them.
The calling of strike against the authorities by the Chairman of the Madhya Pradesh State Bar Council and its elected Members amounts to criminal contempt as defined under Section 2(c)(ii) or (iii).
The Registry has been directed to register a criminal contempt case against the Chairman of the State Bar Council and all the other elected member of the State Bar Counci.
It has been directed to issue notice to them for the decision taken by the Court to prosecute them for criminal contempt of court on account of them having compelled the lawyers to abstain from judicial work which is interfering and obstructing the administration of justice in the State.
A large number of Advocates of Madhya Pradesh had gone on strike against a policy of the administration of the High Court to dispose of long-pending cases in district courts. The advocates are protesting against the 25 Debt Scheme introduced by the High Court in October 2021 to tackle the issue of old cases which have been pending for many years and have not been taken up. As per this policy, district courts are required to identify and dispose of the 25 oldest cases in each cou