Delhi govt moves appeal in HC against including NCR lawyers
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court Wednesday sought response from the Bar Council of Delhi (BCD) on Delhi government's appeal against a single judge order extending insurance benefit under the Chief Minister's Advocates' Welfare Scheme to all lawyers registered here irrespective of whether they are registered as a voter in the national Capital.
A bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh issued notice on the Delhi government's challenge to the order and also sought responses from the Bar Council of India (BCI) and lawyer Govind Swaroop Chaturvedi, the petitioner before the single judge.
Seeking a stay on the directions issued by the single judge, senior advocate Rajiv Nayar, representing the Delhi government clarified that it has no issues with implementing the policy for lawyers in the NCT of Delhi. We will see on the returnable date, the Chief Justice said.
Nayar argued that the single judge misconstrued the government's policy by extending it to lawyers outside the city. "Why not extend it to Tamil Nadu? Why should those lawyers not get it?," the senior advocate said.
Senior counsel and chairman of the BCD Ramesh Gupta said that even while extending the benefits under the scheme to NCR lawyers, the single judge did not interfere with the Rs 50 crore budget allocated by the government.
Chaturvedi pressed that the single judge's directions should not be stayed.
On July 12, Justice Prathiba M Singh, dealing with a batch of petitions including one by Chaturvedi, had ruled that the exclusion of lawyers registered with BCD but residing in NCR from the ambit of the scheme was discriminatory and arbitrary. BCD had supported the inclusion of its members residing in NCR within the scheme.
Justice Singh emphasised that the scheme was announced to recognise the contribution of advocates in bettering the lives of the citizenry of Delhi and not for advocates who constitute the electorate.
The court observed that on account of various reasons including economic and financial reasons, a substantial number of advocates lived in the neighbouring areas of Noida, Gurugram, Sonepat, Rohtak, Faridabad, Ghaziabad etc but were intricately and intrinsically linked with the dispensation of justice in the national capital and contributed to the revenue stream.
The court had observed that no documents were placed before it to show the reasons behind the pre-condition of having a Delhi voter ID.
The chief minister had in November 2019 set up a 13 member committee, headed by then-Supreme Court Bar Association president Rakesh Kumar Khanna, to recommend ways to utilise the fund under the scheme for the welfare of advocates.
The committee had recommended a group mediclaim policy of Rs five lakh and a life insurance cover of Rs 10 lakh for each lawyer, besides
setting up e-libraries and creche facilities in district courts through the fund. The matter would be heard next on September 30.
