Darjeeling lawyers call off strike

Darjeeling, April 5: The Darjeeling Bar Association will withdraw their indefinite cease-work from Monday following an assurance from Gorkha Janmukti Morcha chief Bimal Gurung to take up the lawyers’ demands with the state government.

The move has provided relief to hundreds of litigants who were facing inconveniences because of the agitation that started on March 20 to demand the relocation of the special CBI court to Darjeeling and to “restore the deserved importance of Darjeeling as the district headquarters.”

Taranga Pandit, the president of Darjeeling Bar Association, said: “The association has decided to lift the cease- work from Monday as Gorkha Janmukti Morcha president Bimal Gurung today assured us that he would personally take up the matter with the state government. The party president has also assured us that he will arrange for a meeting with the chief minister and the state’s law minister.”

The special CBI court had been shifted from the hill town to Calcutta in 2006 and relocated to Siliguri on March 31 this year. The association wants the court to be transferred back to Darjeeling.

The agitation was also to protest the alleged importance being given to Siliguri.

“We will continue to press for the demands,” said Pandit, who is also a central committee member of the Morcha.

The cease-work has disrupted the normal functioning of the district and session judge court, three additional district and session judge courts, a civil judge (senior division) court, a chief judicial magistrate’s court and a judicial magistrate’s court here.(The Telegraph)