The Delhi High Court bench of Justice Rekha Palli on Tuesday extended support to an advocate who was left out of the Advocates’ Welfare Scheme, initiated by the government to help lawyers affected by the pandemic.
The bench was hearing a petition in which the lawyer was left out in the due process, despite being an enrolled advocate of the Bar Council of Delhi and despite having followed guidelines for the scheme. The petitioner said that when the final list was released in December 2020, the petitioner’s name was not there.
The petitioner has said that he has made several attempts to reach the office bearers of all the respondents through email but received a remedy or response. At that, he had filed a CM Application before this Court.
The Court has issued notice to the respondent. The Court interrogated the GNCTD as to why the name of the petitioner was not mentioned in the list. The Govt of NCT said that the name of the petitioner could not be verified, so his name was not forwarded as a beneficiary of the scheme.
The court called the petitioner and directed that the petitioner must get the name verified in order to speed up the entire process. As it stands, as soon as the petitioner is able to procure a certificate proving that he is a domicile of Delhi, he must be entitled to avail of the benefits and become a beneficiary of the scheme within one week from thereon.
The matter was previously listed before Justice Pratibha M. Singh, where the bench had remarked: “Lawyers are an important part of the justice ecosystem and the Bar Council must take care of them irrespective of their residential status.”
Source: ILNS