india

Updated: Nov 06, 2019 05:50 IST

“We need you”read a placard with a photo of former top cop Kiran Bedi at the protest by police personnel outside the Delhi Police headquarters on Tuesday. The demand has its roots in an episode, during Bedi’s tenure as DCP (north) in 1988, which was quite similar to one that triggered Tuesday’s agitation.

Until thirty-one years ago, the Delhi police and lawyers at the Tis Hazari courts worked together --- literally under the same roof. On the second floor of the court complex, among the offices of the public prosecutor and chambers of the advocates, there was the office of the deputy commissioner of police (north district) Kiran Bedi.

On January 15, 1988, a man was arrested from a woman’s washroom at St Stephen’s College. SBS Tyagi, who was one of the officers then serving under Bedi, said, “The man was held for theft on a woman’s complaint. He did not tell anyone that he was a lawyer. The following day, when our officers were producing the man in the court in handcuffs, the other lawyers recognised him and started protesting. The magistrate discharged him. That was the beginning of the problem.”

Another officer, who did not wish to be named, said while the episode launched a clash between the lawyers and the police, the event that really triggered the faceoff took place a week later when lawyers demanded to meet Bedi at her second-floor office. “On January 21, we were in a meeting for the Republic Day preparations. A group of lawyers said they wanted to meet madam. She asked them to wait outside her office. They were angry and started breaking flower pots. This led to a clash between the policemen and the protesting lawyers, forcing the cops to lathi charge. There were more clashes in the following weeks.”

The lawyers continued their protests and on February 17, a group of about 3,000 people stormed the court premises and attacked the advocates and damaged their vehicles/properties. The lawyers blamed Bedi as being responsible for both incidents — for ordering baton charge and engineering attack by outsiders.

Later, the government set up a probe commission which concluded that the lawyer’s arrest for theft was “justified” but termed his hand-cuffing “illegal”. It also described the subsequent police action as “indiscriminate and unjustified”.

On Tuesday evening, Bedi, who is currently Puducherry’s lieutenant governor said, “ .... I remained firm and refused to budge to the demand of the lawyers seeking suspension/arrest of the cops responsible for hand cuffing the advocate,” she said, adding that the person(arrested for theft) did not identify himself as an advocate at the time of his arrest and also gave a different name to the police.

In the present incident too, the “Delhi Police should take a stand and be firm on it come what may”, she said.

In September 1998, the Vasant Kunj Police arrested a lawyer who was allegedly trying to resolve the alleged take-over of an educational institution. Cops allegedly stonewalled requests to produce the arrested lawyer the next day. Some lawyers allegedly beat up the policemen accompanying the lawyer when he was being produced before the Patiala House court next evening.

Lawyers across trial courts struck work in solidarity with the arrested lawyer. “Both sides showed maturity and the matter was settled through talks. A committee comprising policemen and lawyers inquired into the event,” senior lawyer Karan Singh, the former secretary of the Patalia House Court Bar Association, who was involved in the efforts to defuse the situation, said.

Two years later in June 2000, another clash was reported when lawyers were stopped from marching to Parliament. “The issue was again resolved through dialogue,” Karan Singh said.