By Our Correspondent
Here is a young lawyer, intolerant to injustice. At first sight you might mistake him for a NewGen freak. His ” I don’t care ” style of talk, the pope star type Eastman Colour hair style,; the hairlock flirting around his sleek, straight looking neck, flowing down to the shoulder like a cascade is fascinating. He is Advocate Nandu Prakash of Thiruvananthapuram Bar. Talk to this young lawyer for a while, his real persona will be unfolded. He is a serious legal professional with natural concern for the society and intense revulsion against injustice.
Nandu Prakash believes “as a responsible citizen it’s our duty to stand firmly against injustice and also against those who promote it.” He is worried on the “passiveness of the leaned and elite society against injustice. I genuinely wonder even the lawyers are found overlooking the wrongs happening even in their nearest vicinity.”
Expressing his strong feelings against injustice happening even from the agencies responsible to deliver justice, the advocate said “of late we are experiencing injustice being done by those assigned to carryout justice. Recently I had to undergo a severe ordeal, thanks to the injustice from the local police. I have a firm parentage and strong pedigree and I fought against the police in the court of law and got a decision against the injustice done to me.”
Explaining the false case hoisted on him by the local police he said, “the case was fictitious and fabricated to gratify a lady who was highly connected at that time and later haunted by the same police on multiple criminal offences.”
Further elaborating the incident, he continued, “it was on August 15, 2019. While parking my car on the public road beside the UAE consulate in the city, at about 11 in the night, a lady rushed out from the consulate campus and banged on the bonnet of the car, yelling and abusing me for parking the vehicle by the side of the consulate. Though I tried to pacify her saying, I was waiting for a client who was in need of some urgent legal consultation and will move away soon. But she was relentless and said she could call the then Director General of Police Loknath Behara and get me booked.”
Nandu Prakash said that, in a few minutes some senior police officers arrived on the spot and “booked me for no fault of mine and took my car and me in custody, though I revealed my professional identity. This was sheer injustice done to a bona fide citizen of this independent and democratic country.”
According to Nndu Prakash he was charge sheeted under section 283 IPC. “Interestingly there was no ingredient in the case to prima facie disclose the offence under section 283 IPC. The Mahazar does not reveal the parking nature of the vehicle so that the prima facie impression can be gathered of traffic obstruction. No public way was seen blocked. No vehicular traffic was seen blocked. There was no complaint from any person. No witness except the police officers. No arrest memo and no arrest intimation. No custody memo. There was total violation of all arrest procedures stipulated by the supreme court in multiple cases.”
Advocate Nandu approached the High Court of Kerala for quahing the case and the High Court fered the case to the concerned lower court and the First Class Judical Magistrate Court (2) found the young lawyer innocent and acquitted him with.
Advocate Nandu Prakash has a pertinent question to the ruling dispensation, the administration and the judicial fraternity. His acquittal by the judicial court proves that the arrest was illegal and was done violating the Supreme Court guidelines. So, what could be the penal action against those officials who did injustice to a civilian violating the apex court’s directions?
Quoting from Martin Luther King Jr, the upstander advocate says “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
