The Advocates Association of Bangalore (AAB) urged Bangalore lawyers to boycott Karnataka high court (HC) judge BV Pinto.

The AAB also resolved to request the President of India not to confirm his appointment as a judge of the high court and to ask the chief justice of the Karnataka HC not to assign him any matters.

The body was protesting against Pinto’s alleged remark that the majority of lawyers in Bangalore are involved in prostitution, which was reported by the Deccan Herald on Sunday. The daily had quoted several examples allegedly narrated by Pinto during his 8 December address at a workshop in Bangalore on “harassment of neglected women”.

Pinto has written to the AAB stating that he had been misquoted by the media.

The AAB presently has no other evidence of the alleged remarks made by him, except the DH report, but the body is reportedly, “in the process of obtaining the audio transcripts of the speech made by Justice Pinto at the workshop to bolster its stand”.

Pinto is a judge of the Karnataka HC since March 2010. [India Today]