BOYCOTT OF COURTS----NO MORE HOLDS WATER

by Mohanavadivelan S , Aug 17, 2016

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No sooner I was enrolled as an advocate in 1994, than started an agitation in Tamilnadu of advocates, on account of an attack on an advocate Mr.Shanmugasundaram, by some henchmen. This agitation lasted for nearly 45 days unbounded, the main plank of the agitation was the boycott of the courts. I believe earnestly that nothing was achieved in terms of advocates but the benefits accrued to one man Mr.Shanmugasundaram were many. He went on to become the public prosecutor of the state of Tamilnadu, Member of parliament and many intangible others. Now he betrayed the same advocate community, breaching the boycott call and appearing in the court and conducting the case. As a young and a new entrant into the profession I was attracted towards that agitation then, thinking the boycott of courts by the advocates would cripple the whole economy, bring the administration to a standstill and conceiving a fictitious feeling that everybody is frightened by the site of the advocates ,out of my ignorance. Later I understood how in vain the advocates are very often than not resort to such agitation as our profession is not designed to bring any such changes or pressures on the administration be it executive or judiciary, we fight against through boycott of courts. It could go on for years together without any result and the administration we fight against also go on without even a remote chance of any ill effects.

The Black’s English Dictionary means a boycott as “An action designed to achieve the social and economic isolation of an adversary”. As a matter of fact by boycotting the courts we ostracized ourselves is what one would infer from the ground realities. Not only the mode of our agitation as said supra determines the failure or otherwise of our agitation but also the character of it and the legalities and modalities concerning our profession. Not only we the advocates to whom alone the success of our agitation is attributable but also to our clients, whose perseverance is an essential ingredient for it’s success. When we decide to abstain from attending the courts, it’s not our life, our problems, or our remedies at stake. It’s our clients who have no stakes at all in our agitation are the rank sufferers, having to live with their problems till we go to court. Is it right according to law? Is it justifiable in the name of law that we are supposed to uphold?. Are we not guilty of breaching the contractual liability that we owe to our clients?.Having signed the vakalatnama, we enter into a contract with our clients and failure to attend their case would squarely attract actions for the breach of contract from their end. We have heard our present chief justice speak time and again informing the public at large that they were right to take actions against the advocates who err on this count, abstaining from court proceedings on account of boycott call from the advocates’ body, for compensation. Therefore if we were to agitate against any tyranny using the boycott of courts among other modes, our clients also had to travel with us sailing in the same boat. This makes it all the more difficult to achieve anything with this mode of agitation. The growing anti advocate sentiments among judges and their shedding of crocodile tears for the litigants would end up in mushrooming of Traffic Ramaswamies.The one already existing Ramaswamy was the unnecessarily groomed by the judiciary whose all public interest litigations would pass through all the hurdles and come up for hearing and get the favourable orders and finds it’s way to the press as well, whereas the one filed by an advocate himself would end up drawing criticism from the bench that the court’s time getting wasted. He thrived and flourished only on the anti advocates sentiments, intolerance towards the advocates agitation coupled with the support of the judiciary. There is a line from a song written and sung by the an activist of People’s War Group in the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh which conveys the meaning that the weapon we must use is determined by the enemy himself. We failed to do that and rushed to embrace the boycott of courts as our weapon in this present struggle. This weapon is only capable of killing ourselves and would cause no harm to the adversary.

As a matter of fact except for the young and inexperienced advocates like me 22 years back, the boycott of courts is not their cup of tea. They knew the pros and cons of the same and have the experience of what it achieved in the past. It did not achieve anything against the system except a few isolated incidents against individuals like police excesses in some cases. They are just a hair of the dog. The system and the people at the helm that never bothered about the livelihood of so many advocates who were suspended without even being heard, will not be bothering about the loss of earning to the practicing advocates due to boycott of courts. Already this agitation looks like a sheep that have no shepherd and many advocates are lacking wherewithal to carry the fight forward in terms of money are certainly suggesting bleak future. Unless, we the advocates get rid of this obsolescent way of struggle, namely the boycott of courts, the whole agitation itself will lose it’s sheen. I am not averse to the very idea of agitating against the tyranny but the methods should be more meaningful, capable of uniting all brethren advocates with no burden on their earning source. A mere wearing of black ribbon on the chest by every advocate, though it looks like obsolete, would be sufficient enough to show our strength rather than a weak boycott call making the advocates stealthily appearing before the courts or encouraging their clients to represent their case guiding them from outside. They are not wrong indeed, instead they are perfectly right within the purview of law and preventing them would only be illegal.

LET US NOT DRAW A BLANK