*Jagdalpur (Chhattisgarh):* Beside a small mosque in the Vrindavan Colony of Jagdalpur, Bastar district, runs an open sewage drain. On the other side of the drain is a nondescript two storied house, the office of the Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group, and home to Shalini Gera and Isha Khandelwal, the two human rights lawyers who run it. Thousands of adivasis in this region of Chhattisgarh rely on them.
As on any other day, Shalini and Isha woke up worrying about their cases, only to find out, however, from the morning newspapers, that their work in the area might come to an end soon. The Bastar Bar Association has reportedly passed a resolution at their general body meeting prohibiting any lawyer from “outside” from practicing in the Jagdalpur courts. Gera and Khandelwal are registered with the Delhi State Bar Council and are not enrolled in the state. The Bastar Bar Association Resolution is not available and the Bar post bearers have refused to give a copy to JagLAG. All advocates are registered with a state Bar *Council *which is a statutory body. Each Bar Council has its own rules regarding practice of advocates in that state. For instance, the Delhi Bar Council does not impose any restriction whatsoever on advocates from outside. The Chhattisgarh Bar Council allows outside lawyers to practise so long as their vakalatnamas and other documents are countersigned by a local lawyer....read on http://thewire.in/2015/10/06/in-chhattisgarh-pressure-mounts-on-lawyers-taking-up-cases-of-tribal-prisoners-12482/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "humanrights movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/humanrights-movement. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
