Delhi HC dismisses plea seeking financial assistance for newly enrolled lawyers from Bar Council
Aug 22, 2022
New Delhi [India], August 22 : The Delhi High Court on Monday dismissed a plea seeking direction to Bar Council of Delhi (BCD) and Bar Council of India (BCI) to consider the financial difficulties of all the concerned and to provide the financial assistance of Rs 5000 to the petitioner and newly enrolled advocates in Bar council of Delhi during his initial year of practice.
The plea also stated that there is no rules for allotment of chambers, no equal opportunity to the young dynamic and passionate advocate, instead of the chamber is allotted on the generation basis and on the basis of age of the advocate, which is a denial of the fundamental right of the newly enrolled advocates.
According to the Petition, Petitioner Pankaj Kumar along with other young advocates are intending to pursue their litigation practice and learn under a senior but due to non payment they are not able to learn properly and carry any of their expenditures.
The bench of Justice Satish Chander Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad on Tuesday dismissed the petition after finding no merit in that and said if we allowed lawyers to get stipend money in their initial days later Chartered Accountant will come for that and then people from other professions will come.
On the lack of lawyers chamber issue, the court also said, all the young lawyers are free to sit in the halls available in court, nobody will stop you. If anybody is stopping, you always have a right to come to us.
Petitioner through Advocate Shrikant Prasad stated that various State Bar Councils have already made similar provisions in respect of providing financial assistance to the young advocates and the same is also required in Delhi as the cost of living in Delhi is higher than most of the state in India.
The plea also stated that on December 2021, the Kerala high court directed the state government to consider the difficulties faced by the young advocates in their early year of practice and to provide a minimum financial assistance of Rs 5000/- to each advocates till they are established.
