Lawyers resent Rs 1.4 lakh as chamber’s cost

Dehradun, February 14

The Dehradun Bar Association (DBA) called a general house today to discuss the cost of new chambers in a multi-story building to be paid by advocates. They will be allotted the chambers through a lottery system.
The advocates registered a protest against the proposed cost of Rs 1.40 lakh per advocate and demanded to reduce it. The DBA decided to constitute a committee of members who would assess the cost of construction without taking into consideration a donation of Rs 25 lakh, given by the state government from the total cost, to be divided equally among 112 allottees accordingly. The new building has 56 chambers where each chamber will be shared by two advocates.
Advocate Bakul Khadelwal said the construction amount of Rs 90 lakh was overly projected. The chambers were ordinary with no tiles or fancy addition and were too small to be shared by two advocates. The sum, quoted by the DBA of Rs 1.40 lakh as a lease amount, was too high, she said.
“The DBA is a profitable organisation which earns from various sources. Besides giving Rs 50,000 on the death of an advocate, it does not spend anything else on us. So it must contribute from the fund and does not charge from us the hefty amount,” she said.
It was today the DBA increased the assistance from Rs 25,000 to Rs 50,000 to family members of an advocate after his death.
Former president of the Dehradun Bar Council Razia Begh was also not happy with the projected cost of the building and the amount to be taken from the allottees. She also demanded to give more time to advocates to apply for the chambers.
The entire process of allotment may now take longer time with the committee coming into picture.
Meanwhile, the election to the DBA is also scheduled for February 27 for which the nomination process will start from tomorrow. LB Gurang, advocate, said the new building would not solve the problem of providing chamber for all advocates in the District Court as there were around 1,000 advocates who did not have their own chambers and were sitting in the open.