Varenya Vaish
Sana Memom and Ors. v State of Chattisgarh and Ors.
The Honourable High court of Chhattisgarh, on the basis of a Public Interest Litigation, for creating a set of fixed rules with regards to granting the Junior advocates financial aid for their work-issued a notice to the State Bar Council of Chhattisgarh and Bar Council of India and has sought a reply in 8 weeks.
The petition was filed by Sana Memon and Siddhant Das in the said High Court through Advocates Praveen Das, Vivek Sharma, Gary Mukhopadhyay, Abhishek Chandra Gupta, Ayushi Agarwal. The matter was heard in the Division Bench which was headed by Honourable Chief Justice Arup Kumar Goswami.
The public interest litigation revolved around the idea that being one of the most noble professions, the junior advocates practicing advocacy face the biggest issue of having severe financial constraints. It was further submitted that advocates are required to pay the amount of 16,000INR at the time of their State Bar Council registration, however, there is no provision pertaining to the welfare fund to support the junior advocates for their growth and betterment, especially in their early days of practice.
The very fact that there are no designated rules pertaining to the welfare of the junior advocates in the State of Chhattisgarh serves as the main basis of the petition. It was also submitted that several states have already framed guidelines with regards to extending financial assistance by a way of stipends, such as the state of Jharkhand with ‘The Jharkhand State Bar Council New Advocates Stipend Rules, 2016’ and the state of Puducherry with the ‘Government of Puducherry Grant of Stipend to Junior Advocates Scheme, Rules 2020’.
Adding to the aforementioned is the state of Kerala which has ‘Kerala Advocates Stipend Rules, 2021” as well as the state of Andhra Pradesh which had passed an order for granting monthly stipends to Junior advocates in 2019.
Supporting the contentions, the case of Advocate Dheeraj Ravi and Ors. v. State of Kerala and Ors. and the case of Ashish Kumar Singh v. Union of India and Ors, were cited. In the aforementioned cases, the respected high courts dealt with the same grievances as of the current case and have issued notices to the particular departments.
It was further submitted that, under the Right to Information Act, 2015, the petitioners sought answers from the Bar Council of India pertaining to whether any decision/program under the Bar Council of Chhattisgarh has been made with regards to providing monetary support for junior advocates. However, no reply has been received by the petitioners.
Hearing the contentions, the High Court of Chhattisgarh has issued notices to Chhattisgarh State Bar Council and Bar Council of India. It has sought their response within eight weeks based on the prayer put forth in the petition that seeks a monthly stipend to be given to Junior Advocates. A judgement pertaining to the above-mentioned case is yet to be given.
Read the petition here.