Awadh Bar Assn, HC admn at loggerheads

The Awadh Bar Association and high court administration of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court are at loggerheads over the issue of proposed fee for allotment of lawyers’ chambers .

The Bar association is up in arms against the fee and has asked lawyers to not fill forms for allotment of chambers.

Senior registrar of high court, Vikas Srivastava issued a new policy on April 3 for allotment of chambers to lawyers which is being opposed by the Awadh Bar Association.

The court administration has fixed a fee of Rs 50,000 for allotment of chambers to lawyers having an experience of 7 to 15 years of practice, Rs 75,000 for lawyers having an experience of 15 to 20 years and Rs two lakh fee from those who have more than 20 years of experience.

In the last category, the high court administration has fixed a fee of Rs 6 lakh from 22 designated senior lawyers of the high court.

The new high court campus in Gomti Nagar has 740 chambers and each chamber would be allocated to three lawyers. For a lawyer willing to pay more, single allotment of chamber is also proposed.

The Bar association has passed a proposal against high fee for allotment of chambers and has proposed only one time security money of Rs 25,000.

Satish Chandra, general secretary, Awadh Bar Association, has asked members of the Bar to not fill forms for allotment of chambers. “We have passed a proposed opposing high fee structure for allotment of chambers to lawyers. When the land and the building have been provided by the state government, then this fee cannot be justified,” said Chandra.

“Soon, we will meet the chief minister and will also try to meet Prime Minister to apprise them about the issue. The Bar has proposed only one time security money of Rs 25,000 from lawyers for allotment of chambers. It is an old proposal of the Bar and we will stick to it,” said Chandra.