Lawyers help each other to stay afloat during the pandemic

Well established senior counsel donate generously for welfare of less privileged juniors

Among lawyers there exists a stark contrast between the paltry remuneration of the juniors with no steady flow of income and the huge amount of professional fees charged by well-established senior counsel. According to a recent Madras High Court order, there were around 65,000 advocates on the rolls of the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry (BCTNP) as on date, and during this pandemic, the legal fraternity had shown extraordinary camaraderie by donating generous amounts of money towards the welfare of the needy. It all began with Justice S.M. Subramaniam of the Madras High Court being able to see the devastation to be caused by the pandemic during the first wave in March 2020. Right then, he donated his monthly salary of ₹2.25 lakh to the State government for the welfare of unorganised sector labourers who had lost their livelihood. This gesture led to the creation of an advocates relief fund by BCTNP and many designated senior counsel, including P.S. Raman, A.R.L. Sundaresan, P. Wilson, donated generously for providing financial assistance to young lawyers. In April 2020, the Bar Council of India (BCI) Advocates Welfare Fund Committee, then chaired by S. Prabakaran, also pitched in by handing over a cheque for ₹40 lakh to BCTNP chairman P. S. Amalraj. Activist lawyer Sudha Ramalingam too moved a writ petition in the High Court seeking the intervention of the State government and the BCTNP in providing insurance cover to lawyers and their family members. She pointed out that many lawyers had lost their lives and that of their loved ones and that many of them did not have any kind of health insurance cover to meet medical expenses.