Bombay HC dismisses petition seeking to exempt lawyers from lockdown restrictions

Mumbai. The Bombay excessive court docket (HC) final Friday dismissed a petition searching for exemption for legal professionals and their workers in the course of the nationwide lockdown restrictions, which had been enforced from March 25 to include the unfold of the raging coronavirus illness (Covid19) outbreak, and likewise refused to purchase into the argument that they’re important service suppliers like different frontline employees battling the pandemic.

“In our considered view, no mandatory directions can be issued to the state legislature to include the legal services rendered by the advocates into essential services (as contemplated under Maharashtra Essential Services Maintenance Act, 2017),” mentioned a two-member HC bench, comprising Justices SS Shinde and Madhav Jamdar, whereas rejecting the petition filed by advocate Imran Mohammed Salar Shaikh.

He had moved the HC, by way of advocate Kareem Pathan, searching for a path to Maharashtra authorities to incorporate companies rendered by legal professionals as a necessary one and exempt them and their workers from the prevailing lockdown restrictions.

Shaikh had filed the petition after Mumbai Traffic Police had stopped him just lately, when he was on his technique to Mumbai metropolis civil and periods court docket on his two-wheeler and imposed a fantastic of Rs 500 for flouting lockdown restrictions.

Advocate Pathan argued that legal professionals throughout the nation had been attending courts even in the course of the lockdown, and consequently instructions to the state authorities had been essential to exempt legal professionals and their workers from lockdown restrictions by together with their companies as a necessary one.

He additionally prayed earlier than the court docket to waive off the fantastic imposed on the petitioner by Mumbai Traffic Police.

The HC, nonetheless, expressed its incapability to entertain the petition and subject instructions to the state authorities as prayed for.

The bench mentioned, “It is within the exclusive domain of the state legislature to legislate as to which services to be included in the essential services, keeping in view the paramount interest of the community.”

The bench has, nonetheless, allowed the petitioner to file a complete illustration to the state authorities elevating the problems put forth within the petition.

It has clarified that the dismissal of the petition shall not be construed by the federal government as an obstacle in deciding the illustration filed by the petitioner.