High Court Seeks Status Report From Delhi Govt Over Implementation Of 'Single Window System' For Clearing Fee Memos Of Govt Counsel

The Delhi High Court has sought status report from the Delhi Government over further progress in the implementation of 'Single Window System' (SWS) for clearing fee memos of its Government counsel.

Justice Pratibha M Singh was dealing with a matter concerning outstanding bills of Advocate Anjana Gosain and the non-payment of the outstanding fee by the Delhi Government.

While Gosain submitted that all her outstanding fee memos have been cleared by the GNCTD, a status report was filed by the Delhi Government regarding Single Window System for the payment of fee to Government counsels appearing for the GNCTD.

According to the status report, it was revealed that the SWS for smooth and seamless payments of Government counsels was at an advanced stage of development and that there had been coordination between the Law Department, GNCTD and the National Informatics Centre (NIC) for the setting up of the said system.

The report further stated that as of 17th March, 2022, the Virtual Machine was created by the National Informatics Centre Services Inc. (NICSI) Cloud Coordinator and the URL of the link was also provided to the Department of Law, GNCTD for the security audit.

It also stated that the hosted Website will be accessible only to various departments of Delhi Government for the purpose of updating the hierarchy of the officers who were involved in processing of fee bill of Government Counsels. Further, the portal will be accessible by such government counsels through the user ID provided by the Department after the completion of hands on training.

The Court was also apprised that various suggestions were received from the officers of various departments of GNCTD during the training process, some of which were being considered for being incorporated in the existing software so as to make it more user friendly.

"Government counsels, who have to upload their fee memo on a daily basis are now to be trained as to the manner in which the portal is to be used for uploading of bills and for ascertaining the status thereof. Accordingly, the training has been fixed for counsels for GNCTD from 25th April, 2022 to 29th April, 2022," the Court noted.

Perusing the said status report, the Court was of the view that the SWS should be made functional soon, in view of the progress made as per the report.

"Thus, the features that have to be incorporated on the basis of the suggestions that would be made by the Government counsels, as also the training of officers yet to be undertaken, if any, shall be completed by 15th May, 2022. Further, the security audit is directed to be completed by 30th June, 2022. An endeavour shall be made to make the SWS portal fully functional by 15th July, 2022," the Court ordered.

The Court added that the Delhi Government may proceed further and allot the User IDs to the various Government counsels whose services were being utilised for by the Government.

Furthermore, the Court said that it shall be ensured that those officials in various departments who were handling the processing and clearing of bills do so in a fixed time frame.

"The process of clearing of fee memos after being uploaded on the SWS by the counsels ought to be completed within a period of 30 days from the date of the uploading or any reasonable time limit so that clearing of Government counsel's memos is not postponed indefinitely," the Court said.

While posting the matter for further hearing on 21st July, 2022, the Court sought a status report from the Delhi Government on further progress made in the implementation of the SWS for clearing of Government counsel's fee memos, in terms of Court's directions.

Case Title: ANJANA GOSAIN v. GOVERNMENT OF NCT AND ANR.

Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Del) 298

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