Advocates’ group writes open letter about plight of lawyers | Ranchi News – Times of India

Ranchi: The Advocates’ Association of Jharkhand high court on Sunday wrote an open letter to all its members highlighting the pending cases and delay in hearing because of the “persistent and unreasonable constitution of benches by the current high court management” despite several requests by the association on the contrary in the past three months.The association secretary, Navin Kumar, said, “We are pained to write this letter but we are left with no option. We have urged the high court for the past three months to look into the matter but no action has been taken. The members of the association are feeling the pinch while litigants are suffering and our noble profession is being undermined..According to the letter, maintaining the “problematic constitution of the bench” has led to severe pendency of issues, including backlog of writ petitions, prolonged delays in bail admissions and stagnation of other critical judicial matters.The letter further said learned advocates were unable to provide satisfactory responses to the clients’ legitimate queries. Further, people have lost confidence in the judicial system and legal practitioners were facing financial hardships because of the delayed hearings.Moreover, denial of timely justice, increased costs and mental agony for the litigants apart from violation of the fundamental right to a speedy trial have resulted in prejudice to the litigants.Towards mitigating these issues, the association has undertaken several initiatives like submitting multiple representations to the Chief Justice of India and the Chief Justice of Jharkhand High Court apart from the registry of both the courts. In addition, the association has also held formal meetings with the court administration and constructive suggestions for optimal bench constitution were taken up.However, the court administration has shown no willingness to address these legitimate issues, the association lamented.In the letter signed by president Ritu Kumar, general secretary Navin Kumar and treasurer Pran Pranay, the association demanded immediate action, including formal protest by submitting a memorandum to the Chief Justice of Jharkhand, seek urgent audience with the full court, approach the bar council for intervention and collective action plan like organising peaceful demonstration within the court complexes and engagement with the media to highlight their crisis.In the event these approaches did not bear fruit, the association decided to abstain from all court proceedings for a specified period of time, approach higher judicial authorities and seek intervention from the Supreme Court.Stating that the current scenario the advocates are facing is a serious threat to the rule of law and access to justice, the association said they cannot remain silent spectators while the clients suffer and appealed to all the lawyers to unite and extend full support to the future course of action.