Gujarat HC Advocates’ Association Proposes Stipend Scheme For Young Lawyers

In a unique move, the Gujarat High Court’s Advocates’ Association (GHAA) has proposed a few schemes for the benefit of young bar members.

A scheme related to life and medical insurance has been proposed for members in 23-50 year age bracket.

As many as 200 lawyers have already registered under this scheme, which provides a life insurance cover for Rs. 5 lakh and a medical insurance cover of Rs. 2 lakh.

The managing committee of the association has also proposed a scheme named SUPER-30. Under this scheme, 10 lawyers with less than three years of experience and no legal background will receive a monthly stipend of Rs. 5,000. In the second year of the scheme, 10 more lawyers will be selected. Same will continue in the third year, however, every lawyer selected will cease to receive the benefits of this Super 30 Scheme after completion of the 3-year period. The selected members will also get a six-month training with a reputed lawyer by rotation for three years and also a laptop with the Supreme Court software from year 1950 and Bare Acts. These laptops will be provided on a three-year EMI of Rs. 1,500.

In order to be eligible for the Super 30 scheme, following are the criteria laid down by GHAA:

i) Overall good education background (S.S.C, H.S.C, LL.B).
ii) No blood relation should be in the profession or a Judge of Supreme Court, high court or district court. (Blood relation includes living grandfather, father, mother, brother and sister, if they are in active practice for more than 15 years, and in the case of a judge, if he is in service for more than three years).
iii)  The income of his/her family (father-mother) should be less than Rs. 6 lakh.
iv) From one family, more than one lawyer will not be given the benefit of this scheme.

The selection committee for the said scheme will have the Advocate General, president of the association,  general secretary of the association, one designated senior advocate, one member from the committee elected in the category of less than 5-year practice and one co-opted member to be selected from the lawyers having more than 20 years of practice, as its members.

In order to create the funds required for sustaining these schemes, senior advocate Dushyant Dave has given a contribution of Rs. 25 lakh while another senior advocate Sudhir I Nanavati has given a contribution of Rs. 10 lakh. GHAA president Asim Pandya requested members of the bar to contribute for the implementation of these schemes on yearly basis in the range of Rs. 15,000 to Rs. 75,000.

This article has been made possible because of financial support from Independent and Public-Spirited Media Foundation.