The Supreme Court has finally decided to intervene in ending the ban on the media from Kerala court premises.
The closure of the media room at the Kerala High Court in Kochi had led to a clash between lawyers and the media in the city this week.
Lawyers, angry at the way the media reported the arrest of a government counsel on molestation charges, have been boycotting courts since Thursday.
Media reports said the chief justice of India, T S Thakur, had directed acting Kerala chief justice, Thottathil B Radhakrishnan, to reopen the media room at the high court. However, the one at the court complex in the state capital remains closed indefinitely.
Justice P N Raveendran and Justice P R Ramachandran, emissaries and colleagues of the acting chief justice, who reached here yesterday morning, held talks with officials of the press club and journalist unions and sought their co-operation. They decided to keep the media room here closed till the situation returned to normal.  The duo also visited media persons injured in the attacks by lawyers and their supporters at the court premises on Thursday.
“The courts will start functioning normally from today,” justice Ramachandran told reporters after the talks.
The meeting also decided to form a media relations committee to prevent such situations in future. The district judge, representatives of the media, bar association and court staff, would be members of the panel.
The lawyers, however, continued their protests, taking out a march on the press club in Kochi and burning copies of newspapers. They staged protests in Alappuzha, Kollam and Thrissur.
The lawyers’ boycott hit functioning of courts across the state for the second day yesterday. A court in Kollam had to postpone sentencing of serial killer Aadu Antony given the tension prevailing there.
The chief justice directed Supreme Court judge, Kurian Joseph, to resolve the issues while ordering the opening of the media room inside the high court as well as “restoring and repairing the same.”
The judiciary “will do everything to find a solution” as “the media and the court represent integral pillars of society”, he said.
The High Court Advocates Association meanwhile toughened its stance and decided to initiate disciplinary action against six members regularly appearing in the media - Kaleeswaram Raj, Sangeeta Laxman, Sivan Madathil, Sebastian Paul, Jayasankar and C P Udayabhanu.
The lawyers allege the police misused the media to give publicity to the arrest of lawyer Dhanesh Mathew Manjooran last week after a woman claimed he had tried to molest her on a public road at the busy Convent Junction in Kochi.  “The manner in which the police published the news and framed the lawyer” was against the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court, the association said adding the state police chief Loknath Behera maintained that the complaint was genuine.
The clashes spread to the state capital on Thursday when the media workers found their room locked and posters put up stating ‘No Admission to the Fourth Estate’.
At least half a dozen media personnel were injured when lawyers threw stones and bottles at them. Some local politicians and trade union activists also joined the attackers.
Congress party president in Kerala, V M Sudheeran, said the government headed by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had failed to properly handle the situation and end the deadlock.