Chief Minister Advocates Welfare Scheme: Bar Council of Delhi demands medical, term insurances as earlier promised

The Bar Council of Delhi has filed a petition at the Delhi High Court seeking directions to the Delhi Government to grant medical and term insurance policies to advocates whose names have been finalised by the Delhi Government and registered under the 'Chief Minister Advocates Welfare Scheme'. The petition seeks that this be done within a period of 15 days.

The petition has prayed that respondents should release money and issue insurance policies for Mediclaim of Rs 5 lakh and Term Insurance of Rs 10 lakh to 29,098 advocates, already registered under the scheme.

The petition states that according to a cabinet decision on December 12 last year, it was decided by the Delhi Government to provide Welfare Scheme to the advocates under th Chief Minister Advocates Welfare Scheme. According to this scheme, advocates enrolled with the Bar Council of Delhi, who are also voters of the national capital, are entitled to register under the scheme. Accordingly, the beneficiary of the scheme was entitled to medical insurance of Rs. 5 lakh and term insurance of Rs. 10 lakh. The petitioner states that it had also provided to the respondents. 

The petitioner alleges that on March 20 this year an advertisement was published by the Delhi Government in this regard and registration of advocates was to commence from March 21. The petition further expresses that as soon as the process of registration commenced, a total lockdown was to be imposed due to the COVID-19 outbreak. 
Since the last date for registration was March 31, the Bar Council of Delhi made repeated request to the Delhi goverment to extend the period of registration, which was extended upto April 14, despite the earlier sought upon date of April 30.

The petition submits that no schemes were made available during 2019-2020 and even durin the disastrous COVID-19 crisis nothing was done .

The petition alleges, "Respondent did not assure immediate implementation of the schemes. It is submitted that looking into the past conduct of the Respondent No.1, the further delay is likely to happen, which will be more prejudicial and detrimental to the interest of advocates, who have already been registered and found to be eligible 
as per the scheme."

The petition was moved through the Chairman of the Bar Council of Delhi, Mr KC Mittal, who alleged that unduly delayed welfare scheme has deprived legal community of its benefits and that because in these circumstances, urgent and immediate orders are necessary to be passed by the court.