Even as the lawyers’ strike over increase in pecuniary jurisdiction continued in Delhi High Court for the second successive day on Thursday, the Executive Committee of High Court Bar Association (HCBA) suspended its president, Rajiv Khosla, as an association member for his “anti-Bar activities”.
Mr. Khosla had reportedly expressed his disagreement with the HCBA’s decision to abstain from court work and stated that the “meaningless strike” had brought disrepute to the association.
“Shockingly, we never protested to bring back quality work taken away by tribunals from High Court,” he said in an SMS sent to lawyers.
Taking exception to Mr. Khosla’s statement, the HCBA Executive Committee said the president had conducted himself in a manner designed to cause harm to the interests of members of Bar. It expressed its “no confidence” in Mr. Khosla and decided to issue a show cause notice to him, besides placing him under suspension.
HCBA secretary Abhijat said the lawyers would continue to abstain from judicial work on Friday, while the association would review the situation on Friday evening. The High Court lawyers are opposed to increasing the pecuniary jurisdiction from Rs.20 lakh to Rs.2 crore.
The Delhi High Court (Amendment) Bill, 2014, seeking to reduce High Court’s workload by transferring thousands of civil suits valued up to Rs.2 crore to district courts, was passed by Rajya Sabha in May this year.
Though the Bill has been listed in the schedule for Lok Sabha during the ongoing session, it has not been taken up for consideration and passing because of disruption of proceedings.
