Kanchi lawyers to boycott courts

Lawyers on Tuesday resolved to boycott all local courts till Friday protesting the filing of an FIR against two of their colleagues on the charge of threatening an approver in the Sankararaman murder case.

The decision was taken at a meeting of Bar Association of Kancheepuram, its President M Madanagopal said.

Accusing the police of filing the FIR on "trumped up" charges, he said all 117 members of the bar would boycott the courts till Friday. A meeting of the association would be held on Monday to review the situation and decide the future course of action, he added.

The FIR was registered on Monday against Kanchi mutt lawyers Revathi Vasudevan and Nadira Banu, who are also members of the local free legal aid cell, on a complaint from the wife of accused-turned approver Ravi Subramaniam that the two had recently induced and threatened her husband with dire consequences to retract his confession.

Madanagopal also announced that all 35 members of the Kanchi Taluk Free Legal Aid cell were resigning from the panels of the cell to protest the police action.

He contended that the Siva Kanchi Police had no authority to file the FIR in this case as Ravi Subramaniam was under judicial custody and only a magistrate could issue a directive to them.