HC judge says country needs more lawyers
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There is an urgent need for more lawyers in the country to facilitate access to justice, Justice V.V.S. Rao of the AP High Court said on Tuesday. Addressing a farewell programme hosted by the Bench and Bar of AP High Court on his superannuation, Justice Rao said, "There are divergent approaches among judges. A democratic dissent is good (but) disagreement ignoring realities is avoidable." He said access to justice is the benchmark of good administration of justice: "It must be inexpensive, expeditious and qualitative. In this mission, all stakeholders -the litigants, the public, police, the government, advocates and judges - have a role." Earlier, advocate-general A. Sudarshan Reddy recalled Justice Rao's services to the judiciary during his tenure. Made an additional judge of High Court in 1999, Justice Rao became a permanent member in April 2000.
No relief for KVP kin in call details case
Justice K.C. Bhanu of AP High Court on Tuesday refused to grant an order to stay the arrest of K. Raghu Rama Krishna Raju, an industrialist and relative of Rajya Sabha member K.V.P. Ramachandra Rao, in the case relating to access of CBI joint director V.V. Lakshminarayana's phone call details. Hearing Mr Raju's plea for direction to declare as illegal the police action in registering a case against him, the judge adjourned the case to July 13.
Senior defence counsel D. Prakash Reddy contended that Mr Raju had received the call data from his friend K.V. Reddy, who had in turn got it by using the RTI Act. Arguing that the law does not grant immunity to police officers and that a citizen has every right to know about functions of a government servant, he said there is no bar under the Right to Information Act to obtain call details of a police officer.
Pointing out that the police invoked Official Secrets Act and provision of criminal conspiracy (Section 120-B of IPC) against his client, the counsel urged the court to stay all further proceedings, including Mr Raju's arrest. Special counsel N. Sridhar Reddy, representing the advocate-general, urged the court to grant him time to argue the case since he received the case papers only a day ago.
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