Telangana HC CJ Releases Financial Assistance To Advocates & Clerks Under COVID-19 Relief Scheme

Chief Justice of Telangana HC, Raghvendra Singh Chauhan, on Thursday released financial assistance to advocates and clerks via e-payment in the presence of Advocate General, Banda Shivananda Prasad, & HC Registrars.

Payment was released to all advocates and clerks who were found eligible under the scheme.

The Trust received a total of 14,166 and 1,029 applications from the Advocates and Advocates Clerk respectively. Keeping in view the availability of funds, the Committee decided to grant an amount of Rs.10,000 to each Advocate and Rs.5,000 to each Advocate Clerk as an assistance in the prevailing lockdown as the effect of COVID-19 pandemic.

The Telangana Government had decided to provide financial assistance to the needy Advocates and Advocates Clerks. For this purpose, Rs 25 crore was sanctioned and in that Rs 15 crore was immediately released to the Law Department. The Telangana Advocates Welfare Trust has been formed under the guidance of Chief Justice and a Committee was constituted with Advocate General, Chairman, Bar Council and the Law Secretary.

Further, the trust formulated guidelines to identify the beneficiaries to disburse the amount.

For taking the financial assistance, guidelines states that the Advocate applying:

(i) Should be in real and active legal practice at the bar,

(ii) Ought to have passed the All India Bar Examination,

(iii) Was not earning monthly incomes of Rs. 15,000,

(iv) Should not have been receiving any monthly payment from the advocate office where he is working as Junior Advocate,

(v) Should not be a Government/private employee,

(vi) Have not been retired from the service.

The needy Advocates who want this financial assistance have to make applications from Whatsapp and email to respective Bar Associations and the President/Secretary and the Junior Officer shall scrutinize and approve applications and forward the same through e-mail to Telangana Advocate Welfare Trust. The last date of application was fixed as 22.05.2020.

As per the guidelines, the Clerks of the Advocates, who is neither a Govt. nor a Private employee and whose monthly income is below Rs. 10,000, has to enclose a copy of Certificate of Registration for getting the financial assistance.