Panel to look into court fee hike

PATNA: After venting their ire against government move to hike court fee, lawyers in the state now appear to be on a reconciliation path now. It was evident on Sunday meeting of Bihar State Bar Council, which instead of adopting a resolution for taking the struggle to the districts, as was claimed by some of the council members during the two-day agitation of Patna High Court lawyers on February 28 and 29, chose to give the state government some time before intensifying the struggle. The council adopted a resolution regarding constitution of a nine-member committee which will look into the alleged anomalies in the recent court fee hike and would accordingly put up a charter of demand before the state government. The committee consists of Bihar State Bar Council president Rajendra Singh, Mannan Kumar Mishra, Baleshwar Sharma, Y V Giri, Keshav Srivastava, Yogesh Chandra Verma, Shail Kumar Sinha, Rajeshwar Prasad and Sudama Rai. Advocate general (AG) P K Shahi will be a special invitee to the committee. Talking to TOI after the council meet, Yogesh Chandra Verma, a council member who is also in the nine-member committee, said that the resolution was adopted after verbal assurance of the AG who urged the council to give reconciliation process a chance before going for a statewide protest programme. "Keeping this point in mind the council decided to constitute a nine-member committee which will hold a regular meeting in the next week and would accordingly come up with its suggestion which will be put before the government," he added. The state government had issued notification on January 8 this year effecting hike in various categories of court fee. Protesting the government's move members of all the three associations of Patna High Court - Lawyers' Association, Advocates' Association and Bar Association - abstained from their professional duty on February 28 and 29.

Times of India; Patna 3 Mar 2008, 0316 hrs IST , Sanjeev Kumar Verma , TNN