Atrocity victim can seek appointment of advocate of his choice

S Shyam Prasad | NT

Bengaluru:

The High Court of Karnataka has held that the opportunity to a SC/ST person seeking appointment of a particular advocate to fight his case cannot be denied to him. “It cannot be misunderstood that appointing an advocate on the request of the victim is against the SC/ST Act and Rules,” the High Court has said, allowing the victim to choose his advocate to fight his case.

R Janava, a resident of Koppa, Chikkamagaluru, had filed a complaint of atrocity under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Rules against Cheriyan MC, Vinodha Chennappa, Sudhakara and Venkatesha, all of them from the Annaparai Estate in Chikkamagaluru. The case is pending for trial.

In the meantime, Janava requested the Deputy Commissioner of Chikkamagaluru to appoint B Satish Chandra Kalavarkar as his advocate in the case. The DC made the appointment in April 2021. The accused persons in the case approached the High Court against this appointment. They claimed that as per the SC/ST Rules the State Government should select the advocate from the panel of advocates it has already appointed for fighting such cases.

The advocate should also be a Senior Advocate as per the rules. It was also claimed that since Kalavarkar is already the advocate for Janava in a civil case, his appointment should be set aside in the criminal case.

Justice K Natarajan who heard the petition however dismissed the contentions of the accused. “It is not only safeguarding interest but the legislature is very much aware of the atrocity on the SC/ST people and in order to defend their cases, it cannot be expected to appoint an ordinary advocate who is put in a few years of practice.

The SC/ST Rules provides appointment of an eminent senior advocate and therefore, the downtrodden people may be able to prosecute the matter against the upper caste people effectively in the Court of law,” the HC said.

Dismissing the petition, the HC said, “Opportunity cannot be denied to the victim of the crime, therefore, the appointment of respondent No.4 (Kalavarkar) by the Deputy Commissioner as special Counsel for respondent No.2 (Janava) is a better advocate to defend the case of respondent No.2 as he has already appeared on behalf of respondent No.2 in the bail matter of the petitioner. Therefore, the petition is devoid of merits and is liable to be dismissed.”