GUWAHATI, Feb 22 - The Patriotic Peoples� Front Assam (PPFA) has expressed serious concern over the Goalpara incident, where a sitting judge was physically manhandled by some lawyers recently, and demanded stern action against those unruly law practitioners so that the dignity of the Indian judicial entity is maintained.
The PPFA argued that the anti-national criminals, who assaulted Foreigners Tribunal member Ajay Kumar Phukan inside his office at Goalpara in western Assam, must be punished to protect the image of judicial personalities among the masses.
It may be noted that a group of lawyers, while engaging in heated arguments with the sitting judge on February 15 over a �D� (doubtful) voters case, ended up physically assaulting Phukan and vandalising the office.
Tribunal member Phukan had on February 9 opined that eight out of 13 D-voters, whose cases were dealt with in his court, were foreigners. This angered the lawyers, hired by the individuals, and they along with a few other law practitioners started arguing with Phukan and finally turned hostile.
Phukan had lodged an FIR with the Goalpara Sadar Police Station and the police arrested four lawyers namely Mir Abdur Baten, Safiqur Islam, Anowar Hussain and Nurjamal Islam, suspecting their roles in the assault case. The other three accused (Nazrul Islam, Omar Farooq and Shahjahan Ali), whose names figured in Phukan�s FIR, are absconding.
�We would like to urge the Supreme Court, which constituted the Foreigners Tribunals for expediting identification and determination of illegal migrants, to take serious note of the incident,� said a statement issued by the PPFA, adding that the Bar Council of India must take exemplary action against the lawyers who assaulted a judge.
