An accused should not be denied access to a lawyer, the Supreme Court said on Monday, while disciplining the Gurgaon Bar Association for passing a resolution banning any of its lawyers from representing a senior official of the Ryan Group of schools in the Pradyuman Thakur murder case.
Even as the Bar Association lawyer assured the court that better sense had prevailed on them and they had withdrawn the resolution, a Bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra did not drop its stern countenance. Chief Justice Misra said it was not in the tradition of the profession to stop an accused, whatever his crime, from being legally represented in a court of law.
The case concerns the brutal murder of seven-year-old Pradyumaninside his school’s bathroom in Gurgaon on September 8.
‘Sympathy is different’
“We sympathised with the parents,” explained advocate Ravinder Kumar Yadav, who represented the Bar Association. “Sympathy is different, it does not mean not allowing a lawyer to represent an accused,” the CJI said.
The court observed that it would be the responsibility of the Bar Association’s officials and lawyers that no harm comes to the accused, his lawyer and family during the hearings in the case.
The official, Francis Thomas, represented by senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, initially submitted that he wanted the trial to be transferred out of Haryana. But Mr. Rohatgi did not press his request after the court’s direction fixing the liability on the Gurgaon Bar.
