CUTTACK: The Odisha State Bar Council (OSBC) Emergency Financial Assistance Rules, 2020 to help needy advocates during lockdown has received the approval of Bar Council of India (BCI). The BCI General Council has approved the Rules on May 5 and communicated it on Saturday. In the approval letter, BCI secretary Srimanto Sen said, “The Bar Council of India appreciates the Rules which provide financial assistance not exceeding `10,000 to the needy advocates in financial or social distress and in dire need of such assistance for his/her sustenance during an extraordinary situation in accordance with the procedure prescribed in the Rules.”
According to the Rules, the conditions required for being eligible as a needy advocate to receive financial assistance included an advocate whose income was within `1.5 lakh in the last financial year, spouse of the advocate is not in employment nor is getting pension, the advocate or his/her spouse does not own any house/flat/residential unit in urban area where the advocate is practicing, the advocate and his/her immediate family do not own more than 10 acres of agricultural land and the advocate’s parents having no personal income are dependent on him/her. The advocate must not possess any four-wheeler.
Besides, the advocate enrolled by OSBC must have cleared All India Bar Examination and not receiving more than `10,000 per month from advocates with whom he/she is attached as junior. The apex statutory body for all the over 160 bars associations in the State had passed a resolution to provide financial assistance to needy advocates having less than 10 years of practice. The resolution was passed after members of different bar associations requested for financial assistance citing the plight of lawyers due to non-functioning of High Court and subordinate courts in the State due to lockdown.