Against the backdrop of recent violent confrontations between lawyers and media persons in Kerala, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has proposed a permanent mechanism to forestall such events. The committee, to be headed by State Advocate General, will have representatives of the Kerala Union of Working Journalists, Kerala High Court Advocates Association and the Bar Council of Kerala.

The decision follows Vijayan’s discussions with lawyers and journalists here. He had called a round-table meeting with representatives from unions of journalists and lawyers in the presence of the government’s law officers.

‘Forget and forgive’

At a news conference later, he urged lawyers and journalists to forget and forgive the recent “shameful events”. “Let these incidents be a closed chapter,” he said. “Let’s return to the cordial atmosphere that prevailed in the relationship between lawyers and journalists before the recent incidents.”

He noted that there were hardly 100 reporters covering the High Court, while there were about 5,000 lawyers working at the court. Clashes between lawyers and reporters that erupted at the High Court on July 19, had later spread to some other courts and paralysed court work across the State for two days.

In a half-day-long violence at the Vanchiyoor court complex at Thiruvananthapuram, half a dozen reporters had been seriously injured. The lawyers had attacked the protesting reporters with stones and broken bottles.

The clash at the High Court was triggered by ‘biased reporting’ about an alleged sexual abuse of woman by a government pleader. The police had arrested the pleader, while the lawyers’ unions claimed he was innocent.

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