Needy advocates get over Rs71-lakh aid

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Tribune news service

Chandigarh, April 23

The Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana has come to the rescue of those advocates facing financial crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Minderjeet Yadav, chairman of the Bar Council, said Rs 71,30,000 had been disbursed to the needy advocates in Haryana, and the advocates of Punjab and Chandigarh would also get financial assistance soon.

Yadav said the Bar Council had taken up the issue of providing financial assistance to the needy advocates with the governments of Punjab and Haryana and the Chandigarh Administration.

He said the Covid-19 pandemic had caused immense distress to the advocates of the region.

Yadav said due to the unusual circumstances arising out of Covid-19, most of the lawyers, their clerical staff, stenos and typists were distressed with no regular source of income.

Young lawyers do not even have enough resources to maintain their families, he pointed out. Their survival depends on the day-to-day income. As a result they have been pushed to starvation, he added. Yadav said the Bar Council had decided to support such lawyers in these strenuous times.

He said the assistance was provided to the lawyers from the Haryana Advocates Welfare Fund.

Applications for financial assistance were invited and after scrutiny around 713 claimants were found to be in genuine need of assistance, Yadav reveled.

It was then decided by the trustees of the Advocate Welfare Fund that Rs 10,000 be paid to the eligible advocates, he added. Yadav said the Bar Council also took up the issue of the reduction in electricity charges for the advocates’ chambers with the government.

The Haryana Government had recently reduced the charges and the advocates will now pay around 15 paisa per unit less for the consumption of the electricity in their chambers.