CM directs officials to clear all bill of advocates on priority
In a major move to give respite to the legal fraternity affected by COVID-19, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has instructed the officials to expedite the payment of all the lawyers engaged by the government, including the government as well as private lawyers.
“Taking note of the extreme difficulty faced by the lawyer community, the chief minister has ordered officials concerned to immediately clear the payment of bills of the advocates by completing the process soon,” a government spokesman said.
He said the work in courts across the state had slowed down owing to the COVID-19 pandemic and it had severely affected the lawyers as they had no steady income.
“In last four years, Rs 5 crore was sanctioned as corpus fund to provide financial assistance to young advocates. Also, a proposal for an amount of Rs 20 crore was made for the construction of advocate chambers and development of other infrastructure facilities in various districts of the state,” he said and added that besides this the government had made a budgetary provision of Rs 10 crore for young advocates to facilitate purchase of books and magazines. The Uttar Pradesh government in the 2021-2022 budget decided to set up National Law University in Prayagraj while Rs 450 crore was allocated for buildings of courts in districts. An amount of Rs 100 crore is proposed for construction of houses for judges of the high court. A provision of Rs 150 crore has been made in the budget for construction of Lucknow Bench of Allahabad High Court and Rs 450 crore for Allahabad High Court. Besides, Rs 20 crore received from the sale of welfare stamps is proposed to be transferred to the trustee committee of Lawyers Welfare Fund.
