By Komal
The judges, Justice SM Subramaniam and Justice C Kumarappan were listening to a case about the Advocates Welfare Fund Act 2001 in Puducherry. They were told that there were about 200 applications waiting for help from the Tamil Nadu Advocates Welfare Fund. The judges asked the Principal Secretary of the Finance Department and the Secretary of the Law Department in Tamil Nadu to explain why the money wasn’t being given to those who needed it.
On Thursday, Advocate General PS Raman told the judges that the state still hadn’t given Rs. 10 lakh to the Advocates Welfare Fund for the year 2022-2023. He asked if they could at least give Rs. 5 lakh right away to start helping people.
The Advocate General said that the applications had been waiting since 2022 because of the pandemic. In Puducherry, the applications were stuck because of disagreements among some group members. The judges said it was sad that families were suffering because of this delay. They pointed out that the government quickly gave money to other departments, even up to one crore, but lawyers were only getting 10 lakh and sometimes not even that on time.
The Advocate General promised to talk to the right people and make sure the money got to those who needed it.
“ Lawyers are also performing public service. We can’t deny them funds. They’re given only 10 Lakh while Group-B public servants are given 60-70 lakh and sometimes even 1 crore. These payments should be made in a stipulated period. It’s not a big amount. We want to ensure that at least 50% of the pending applications are disbursed,” The Madras High Court remarked.
Appearance:-
Petitioner: Advocate C.Elangovan
Respondent: Advocates A.Tamilvanan (AGP), C.K. Chandrashekar, .S.John J.Raja Singh
Reference
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