Southern States - Tamil Nadu   

CJ moots welfare scheme for newly-enrolled advocates

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI Nov. 12. The Chief Justice of Madras High Court, B. Subhashan Reddy, today suggested evolving a scheme by which the Advocates Welfare Fund could be utilised to provide some form of sustenance allowance for newly-enrolled advocates.

At a function organised here to enrol over 275 advocates in the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu, the Chief Justice said the new entrants to the profession required an allowance at least to meet their living and transport expenses. If an income tax rebate was offered to contributions to the Advocates Welfare Fund, it could attract contributions from the practising senior professionals. The fresh entrants could be provided at least Rs. 1,000, to start with.

On his part, the Chief Justice said, he would try to utilise the services of the youngsters in Legal Aid cases so that they could earn the legal aid service fee. But this effort too required the cooperation and coordination of other legal professionals.

Dispelling notions that only sons, daughter or juniors of veteran senior advocates could shine in the legal profession, the Chief Justice said he himself came from a civil servant's family and started practising independently in a small town, but went on to succeed in the profession.

The performance of an advocate, regardless of one's background, was judged immediately by the court, by clients, other litigants, fellow professionals and the judges.

Referring to a plea by the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu (BCTN), the Chief Justice said he would definitely help it by allotting it more land so that its activities could b expanded.

The Advocate General, N.R. Chandran, welcomed the trend of more women coming into the profession. Noting that some women advocates seemed to drop out of the profession after marriage, he said they could at least do desk work such as drafting and meeting with clients, if they could not attend court.

Senior advocates, R. Krishnamurthy, P. Jayaraman and T. Murugesan, and a former Bar Council chairman, M.S. Jawaharlal, noted that the concept of law was ever-expanding. Young lawyers had to keep themselves abreast of the emerging legal concepts both in the form of statute and Supreme Court judgments. They advised the youngsters to follow the code of ethics for the profession. As representatives of a ``noble profession'' practised by leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, they ought to represent themselves in court and among the clients with dignity.

R. Dhanapal Raj, chairman, BCTN, who noted that an enrolment function was being held for the first time in several years with the Chief Justice himself attending it, explained the benefits accorded by the Council to enrolled advocates.

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