Do lawyers need a statute of their own? The Bombay High Court says so, calling for an Advocates Protection Law as it refused anticipatory bail to a man accused of involvement in the assault of an advocate.
Mumbai: A Nashik resident booked over the alleged assault and threatening of an advocate, who was representing a rival family in civil and criminal proceedings, has failed to obtain anticipatory bail from the Bombay High Court, which observed while dismissing his application that there is an urgent need to enact comprehensive legislation to protect advocates [Kiran Madhavrao Kahandal v. State of Maharashtra and Another].
The order was passed by Justice Madhav J. Jamdar on 13 October 2026. The allegations against the applicant are untested, and the Court has made no final finding on the merits; the accused is presumed innocent unless proved guilty at trial.
Why bail was refused
Calling the matter a serious one, the Court noted that an advocate was allegedly pressured to withdraw his appearance and then assaulted for continuing to represent a party. It relied on the Supreme Court’s decision in X v. Arun Kumar C.K. for the position that the prima facie case is the first consideration, and that the lack of need for custodial interrogation alone does not justify anticipatory bail. On the chargesheet, it found that a statement there prima facie showed the applicant’s involvement in the threats and the assault.
“there is urgent need of enacting comprehensive legislation to provide adequate protection to Advocates”
Advocates being officers of the Court, Justice Jamdar held that no case was made out for the grant of anticipatory bail, and the application was dismissed.
The FIR, as the prosecution puts it
An FIR was registered at Adgaon Police Station, Nashik City, under Sections 109, 333, 351(3) and 352 read with Section 3(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. The prosecution says that on 2 July 2025 three men walked into the complainant advocate’s office in Nashik, damaged property and assaulted him, while a fourth person waited outside. The applicant was not named in the FIR.
The prosecution’s case is that the applicant’s father is a party to one civil and three criminal proceedings against another family, whom the complainant represents, and that the complainant was pressured to withdraw from those cases and was attacked after he refused. The applicant’s role came in through a co-accused’s statement in the chargesheet, and was later examined in further investigation.
What each side argued
For the applicant, it was argued that he was not present at the incident and was implicated only on the strength of a co-accused’s statement, which, he said, cannot be relied on at the stage of anticipatory bail. He cited P. Krishna Mohan Reddy v. State of Andhra Pradesh, and said he had attended the police station under Section 179 of the BNSS. The State and the complainant pointed to the co-accused’s statement in the chargesheet as showing his involvement.
A bail ruling, and what it leaves open
Nothing in the order decides guilt. Its wider interest lies in the observation that advocates, as officers of the Court, need a dedicated statutory shield, and in the Court’s treatment of pressure on a lawyer to abandon a client’s case as an aggravating feature when weighing pre-arrest bail.
Case Title: Kiran Madhavrao Kahandal v. State of Maharashtra and Another [Anticipatory Bail Application No. 2558 of 2026]
Bench: Justice Madhav J. Jamdar, Bombay High Court
Date of Order: October 13, 2026
Appearances: Advocates Chaitanya Pendse, Sachin Kadam and Khushi Rawlani for the applicant; Additional Public Prosecutor S.M. Yadav for the State; Advocates Sanjeev Deore, Shamshad Ali Hashmi, Aditya Deore and Suchita J. Pawar for the complainant