Lawyers clash with cops

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Chennai: The persisting hostility between the state police and the lawyer community witnessed yet another episode when a group of lawyers allegedly stormed into the MKB police station near Vyasarpadi in north Chennai late Saturday evening and ransacked the furniture.
 
This led to a clash that resulted in injuries to four policemen and three lawyers. They have been admitted in two different hospitals. An enquiry by executive magistrate has been ordered.

 
According to police, Michael, president of the Egmore metropolitan magistrate courts advocates association, marched into the police station with his colleagues and friends demanding to know why lawyers accompanying clients were not being properly treated.
 
The police alleged that Michael was drunk and records at the Stanley hospital, where he got admitted after the scuffle with the cops, showed there was alcohol on his breath. 
 
“I had gone to the station along with three other lawyers to ask about the high-handed conduct of the inspector. The advocates accompanying clients had been often ill treated at this station. We were not drunk when we went there. We did not ransack the station; that was done by the policemen themselves under the supervision of an assistant commissioner", said Michael. 
 
Advocate P.S Amalraj, vice-president of the lawyers association, said the police 'excess' was because they nursed a grudge against the lawyers for filing a petition against their director general K Ramanujam in the Madras high court a couple of days back. This petition is coming up for hearing on Monday. 
 
The lawyers' court petition accused the DGP of calling them an 'unruly mob' when they went to his office on Thursday to report against the police in Kanyakumari for ignoring a complaint from some lawyers there regarding an incident at a resort at Anjugramam in the southern district.
 
Denying that the DGP had shown them discourtesy, a senior officer at the police headquarters said a large group of lawyers forced their way to the DGP's chamber on the first floor brushing aside the security personnel's request that only a few of their representatives could go up. 
 
Also, police alleged that the Anjugramam incident only demonstrated the lawyers' 'high-handed behaviour'. "Caretaker Raju at the Indian Hermitage Resort, Marungoor (Kanyakumari district) was manhandled for demanding payment from the lawyers' group for overstaying there.
 
Things were smashed and the lawyers left without settling the dues. Now they are saying, how dare the police register case against us? Those who have seen the footage of that incident say the lawyers' conduct was atrocious", said a senior officer, requesting anonymity.