THCAA holds meeting over judge ‘humiliating advocates’

Members of the Telangana High Court Advocates’ Association on Thursday decided to abstain from attending the court of Justice Moushumi Bhattacharya from Monday, expressing concern over the alleged insults and humiliating attitude towards lawyers and imposing heavy costs on them.

After a general body meeting of the Association held in the afternoon, the Association passed a unanimous resolution to this extent and urged the Acting Chief Justice of Telangana HC not to allocate any judicial duties to Justice Moushumi Bhattacharya. They appealed to the President of India and the Chief Justice of India to transfer the judge from Telangana HC.

THCAA president A. Jagan said the judge was not giving adequate opportunity to the lawyers to present their contentions. The judge was passing directions to the registry without even taking the opinion of clients, he said.

Senior counsel and former president of the THCAA, V. Raghunath, said that the unfortunate trend of advocates getting humiliated started soon after Justice Bhattacharya assumed charge. He said that several senior counsels took up the matter with the judge. According to the former president of the Bar association, the judge insulted the executive committee when it tried to explain the humiliation of the advocates.

Advocate Chikkudu Prabhakar said advocates appearing for different cases before the bench of Justice Bhattacharya were being deprived of adequate opportunity to present their arguments. The judge was adjourning the matters, stating that the advocates were not prepared to argue, he said.

Bar association president Jagan said the advocates would soon meet the CJI over the matter and vent their grievances.