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Lawyers to continue stir

Patna: Mounting further pressure on the Bihar Government, over 8,000 lawyers of the Patna High Court on Wednesday resolved to remain on strike until the hike in court fees was withdrawn.

The coordination committee of three lawyers’ associations of the court met here earlier in the day, the third and final day of the strike, and decided to continue the stir as there was no sign of a rapprochement with the Government.

President of the PHC Bar Association Rana Pratap Singh said the coordination committee had invited representatives of 122 Bar Associations in various districts to attend an extraordinary meeting to discuss the future course of agitation here on April 7.

Rajendra Singh, president of PHC lawyers association, said before the meeting, the agitating advocates would hold sit-ins and demonstrations as part of their mass awareness campaign to inform the common people of how difficult it would become for them to secure justice due to the exorbitant hike in court fees. The lawyers of the subordinate courts at Danapur, Patna City, Patna District Collectorate, Kishanganj, Purnia, Barh and Masaurhi have already gone on an indefinite strike on the issue.

Bihar’s NDA Government had on March 31 rejected the lawyers’ demand for a roll back in the hike.

“We will stick to the decision of raising the court fees in accordance with the recommendations of the Shetty Commission. The hike is necessary because of the increasing expenditure on judicial administration,” Minister of State for Industry Gautam Singh had earlier told the Assembly.

Stating that the court fees were revised in 1935, 1977 and 1986, the Minister said an annual sum of Rs 191 crore was estimated to be spent on court administration against an income of just Rs 20 crore from court fees per year. The State government raised the court fees doubling these in most cases and increasing it four-fold in cases of PIL.

The charge of filing a PIL has gone up to Rs 1,000 from Rs 250. The fixed court fee for presenting ‘vakalatnama’ was increased from Rs 25 to Rs 50 and the rate for procuring copies of judgements raised from Re 1 to Rs 10 per page. -- PTI

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Lawyers to continue stir

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