Banks cant force advocates to pay court fees from their pockets: Punjab & Haryana Bar Council

Privilege Committee of the Punjab and Haryana Bar Council has ruled that banks cannot ask, force and persuade the advocates on their panel to pay court fee, firstly, from their pockets and then to recover it in order to the file recovery suits of their clients.

The Bar Council’s Privilege Committee headed by Lekhraj Sharma has passed the order on a complaint filed by the Debts Recovery Tribunal (DRT) Bar Association, Chandigarh.

The association had approached the Privilege Committee stating that banks have started adopting unethical practice and directing lawyers to pay the court fee from their own pockets at the time of filing applications before DRT, Chandigarh.

They have further alleged that court fee is very hefty and runs into lakh which cannot be paid by the ordinary lawyers. The banks or its officers have no power to ask their empaneled advocates to pay the court fee from their pockets for filing the cases in DRT, Chandigarh.

This practice is not only unethical but also against the Privileges Rights and Duties of the Advocates provided under the Advocates Act, 1961 and it violates their Rights and Duties and privileges as enshrined under BCI Rules, they stated.

The committee in the order said that this kind of practice is certainly in violation of the provision of the Advocate Act 1961. It said that few advocates in order to get more work are paying court fees from their own pockets because they are financially capable.

It is unfair and they are doing it at the cost of the other advocates who are meritorious, capable but not financially well. This act of the advocates is harming the interest of equally meritorious advocates. It is creating a monopoly in the hands of few advocates. In all circumstances, this practice is unlawful, unethical and against the interest of the fellow advocates and cannot be allowed to be continued, said the Bar Council’s Privilege Committee.

It further said that banks as well as the advocates are restrained from carrying out this practice, failing which legal action will be taken under section 35 of the Advocate Act.