Demanding that the civil and criminal proceedings be held in the same building
Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: Lawyers of the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court boycotted the proceedings on Wednesday, demanding that the civil and criminal proceedings be held in the same building.
The boycott came after the Bombay High Court Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyay inaugurated a new wing in the Aurangabad bench on September 25. The new wing is currently being used for criminal proceedings, while the old building is being used for civil proceedings.
Lawyers have been demanding that the civil and criminal proceedings be held in the same building for several months now. They argue that the current arrangement is inconvenient and time-consuming.
On September 26, the Bar Association of Aurangabad unanimously decided that lawyers would not participate in civil and criminal proceedings on the bench from October 4 if the criminal courts were not reopened in the old building by October 3.
However, there was no response from the management office to the lawyer association's resolution. Therefore, lawyers boycotted court proceedings on Wednesday.
The boycott has caused inconvenience to litigants, many of whom had to travel to the new building for their hearings.
The Aurangabad Bench manager (Administration) had sent a letter to the lawyers association on Tuesday, urging the lawyers to cooperate with the administration. The letter also referred to a judgment of the Supreme Court, which said that obstruction of court proceedings can be contempt of court. However, the lawyers have said that they will not call off the boycott until their demands are met.
Show cause notice to two lawyers
In the evening, the Bar Association issued a show cause notice to the two lawyers who participated in the court proceedings ignoring the appeals of the association.