Five Ludhiana lawyers sit on indefinite hunger strike over LADC policy
‘No work’ protest continues, judicial work remains affected
The agitation against the Legal Aid Defence Counsel (LADC) policy intensified further on Tuesday as five members of the District Bar Association, Ludhiana, began an indefinite hunger strike at the District Courts Complex, while the ongoing 'no work' protest continued to disrupt judicial functioning.
District Bar Association president Vipin Saggar, along with Gurbakhshish Bedi, Narinder Adia, Rupila Mohini and Charanjeet Sekhon, sat on hunger strike near the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM), wearing garlands as a mark of their resolve. A large number of advocates gathered at the protest site and extended support to the fasting lawyers.
Lawyers from the Samrala, Khanna, Payal and Jagraon bar associations have also started hunger strikes.
The continuing strike severely affected judicial work in the district courts. With advocates abstaining from court proceedings, hearings in a majority of cases were adjourned, causing inconvenience to litigants and delaying judicial proceedings.
The agitation is being spearheaded by the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of Bar Associations across Punjab. The committee has already decided that the 'No Work' protest will continue until the LADC policy is withdrawn. It has also announced relay hunger strikes at district headquarters, demonstrations outside the Punjab and Haryana High Court in Chandigarh and, subsequently, a protest and hunger strike near the Supreme Court in New Delhi.
The Bar Association reiterated that both the hunger strike and the court boycott would continue with full force until the LADC policy is scrapped.
The controversy
The National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) introduced the Legal Aid Defence Counsel System (LADCS) in 2023. Under the scheme, every district has a Legal Aid Defence Office headed by a Chief Legal Aid Defence Counsel, assisted by Deputy Legal Aid Defence Counsels and Assistant Legal Aid Defence Counsels, all appointed on a fixed salary with office infrastructure provided by the Legal Services Authorities.
These lawyers are entrusted with representing eligible accused persons, including those lodged in jails, and are permitted to visit prisons to provide legal assistance.
The agitating lawyers allege that the system has resulted in a substantial shift of criminal litigation, particularly bail matters, from private practitioners to salaried Legal Aid Defence Counsels. They claim that in many such cases, courts have been granting bail on personal bonds without insisting on sureties backed by property documents or fixed deposits, leading to a further increase in the number of cases handled under the scheme.
According to the protesting lawyers, this has significantly reduced the criminal litigation available to private advocates. They are demanding that the present LADC system be scrapped and the earlier panel-based legal aid mechanism be restored, under which legal aid cases were distributed among empanelled advocates instead of full-time salaried defence counsels.
