Chalo High Court: 230 advocates taken into preventive custody

Police today foiled the bid of advocates to march towards the High Court here as part of the 'Chalo High Court' programme by taking 230 of them into preventive custody. The police had yesterday denied permission to the programme, wherein the Federation of Bar Association had appealed to all advocates practising in various courts in the districts of Telangana and Hyderabad to march towards High Court. "Though the city police denied permission for organising any such programme, advocates in large number gathered at City Criminal court complex to proceed towards the High Court," Telangana Advocates Joint Action Committee (JAC) co-convener T Sriranga Rao said. In view of the prevailing situation, as per the orders of the Registrar General of the High Court, only those practising advocates of HC, whose cases were listed in the cause list for today were allowed to enter into the premises, a senior police official said. "About 230 advocates were taken into preventive custody when they tried to go towards the High Court. They were later let off," the official said. However, no untoward incident was reported, police said. A senior official of the High Court said judges attended to respective cases which were represented by the advocates. Advocates and judicial employees across Telangana under the banner of Telangana Advocates' JAC, High Court Bar Association and others had launched a week-long protest from Monday last in the form of lunch-hour demonstrations outside courts protesting against the provisional allocation of judicial officers between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. "We will intensify our agitation until our demands are met," Sriranga Rao told PTI. The JAC submitted a memorandum to the Acting Chief Justice of the High Court Dilip Bhosale demanding recall the provisional allocation list of judicial officers and to allocate the officers based on their nativity, among other demands.