Mumbai:
A day after a group of lawyers assaulted the media at Delhi's Patiala House Courts, their colleagues in Mumbai have condemned their action.
Sixteen Senior Counsels and 90 advocates have written an open letter regarding what happened during Jawaharlal Nehru University's student union Leader Kanhaiya Kumar's bail hearing.
"As officers of the court and upholders of the law, it is not becoming of us lawyers to engage or indulge in acts of assaulting, beating up and intimidating people within or outside court premises," the letter read.
"The conduct of assaulting any citizen of the country is not only taking law into our hands but proclaiming that we have no faith in justice and the very legal system we practice in.... This is nothing but tyranny and mockery of a system we took an oath to practice in."
Among the senior counsels who signed are Janak Dwarkadas, Shirish Gupte, Ravi Kadam, Aspi Chinoy and Mihir Desai.
On two occasions this week, a group of lawyers had thrashed reporters and students inside the court premises. Kanhaiya Kumar was among those assaulted yesterday as he was being taken to court.
The lawyers have been filmed and photographed unleashing violence on Monday and Wednesday, which has been broadcast on television.
The lawyers, who had claimed that they were only taking on people raising "anti-national slogans", today congratulated each other on social media for "a job well done", saying "what the government and army couldn't do, we have done".
"A fundamental principle of law is that everyone is innocent till proven guilty and by such unbecoming conduct we are declaring the entire process of law infructuous," the Mumbai lawyers' letter pointed out. "If guilt were to be decided outside the court, through popular sentiment the entire judicial process would be rendered meaningless."
Rajiv Dhawan, who was among the six senior lawyers sent by the Supreme Court on Wednesday to investigate the matter, told NDTV, "The attacks by these hooligans is what is really anti-national. They may have LLB degrees but they are disgusting and hooligans."