Supreme Court orders CBI probe into altercation between lawyers, police and scribes outside Bangalore City Civil Court

The Supreme Court today ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate into the violent clash between lawyers, police and media personnel in the Bangalore City Civil Court complex last year that had left several persons injured..The decision was rendered by a 3-judge Bench comprising of Chief Justice P Sathasivam and Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Ranjana Prakash Desai in a petition filed by the Advocates Association Bangalore (Advocate Association, Bangalore v. Union of India & Ors., SLP (c) 22604/ 2012)..The Advocates Association had approached the Supreme Court against the Karnataka High Court’s direction that the investigation be carried out by a Special Investigation Team (SIT). Today’s judgment not only overturned the decision of the Karnataka High Court but also an interim order of the Supreme Court in which it had ruled that the matter did not require investigation by CBI..The incident, which had occurred on March 2, 2012, allegedly began as a verbal duel between media persons and lawyers in the City Civil Court in the Majestic area of Bangalore where a large number of media persons had gathered to cover Janardhan Reddy’s court appearance. It gradually escalated into a violent clash when the police intervened, leaving several people injured..The Court in its judgment directed the CBI to carry out the investigation within 6 months and also directed the SIT to hand over all the relevant documents to the CBI to facilitate the investigation..Senior Advocate KK Venugopal represented the petitioner while Senior Advocate KV Vishwanathan appeared for the State of Karnataka and Additional Solicitor General AS Chandhiok represented the Union government..Lawyers and police have confronted each other on other occasions too. Lawyers and police were at loggerheads in 3 separate incidents in Delhi, Punjab and Jaipur a few months ago which had left a dozen people injured. The Madras High Court had also witnessed acts of violence involving lawyers in 2010.