NEW DELHI: Lawyers in the Supreme Court have started a drive to raise Rs 100 for a advocate who was asked to pay the amount as fine for alleging bias in listing of cases by the court’s registry officials and is contributing 50 paise each for the cause and once the amount is collected, the coins will be deposited with the court’s registry.
A bench led by Justice Arun Mishra had earlier this month dismissed advocate Reepak Kansal’s petition alleging that the Supreme court’s registry gave preferential treatment to influential law firms and litigants while listing matters.
The court had then said there was no justification in alleging discrimination against the department working with less staffers during a pandemic and imposed a fine of Rs 100 on Kansal. Kansal in his plea had stressed before the court that guidelines were needed to stop the registry from discriminating against ordinary lawyers.
The judgment said the monetary fine is a ‘token’ to remind that Kansal should not have levelled such accusations against the Supreme Court registry. But Kansal now has the support of at least 104 fellow lawyers, who also believe the fine should be a symbol — for the court registry to understand Kansal is not the only one who has this opinion.