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The Delhi High Court held that the condition that advocates enrolled with the Bar Council of Delhi should also be in the voters list of Delhi for being eligible to avail of the benefits of the Delhi Chief Ministers Advocate Welfare Scheme runs foul of Article 14 of the Constitution of India.

The order was passed by the single Judge Bench of Justice Pratibha M Singh on a batch of pleas against the condition in the Scheme that the benefit of the same will only be available to such advocates whose names appear in the voters list of Delhi.

The Court observed that since the plea alleged discrimination in the scheme, the same would have to be examined on the touchstone of Art.14. The Court observed that "The Scheme carves out a distinction within advocates registered with the BCD, between those advocates who are residents of Delhi and those who are not. The Scheme is extended to the former and not to the latter. The said classification does not have a rational nexus with the object of the Scheme which is to recognise the contribution of advocates to the practice of law in Delhi. The unique nature of the capital city of Delhi and the National Capital region is that several advocates primarily practising in Delhi’s courts and tribunals and are also voters in Bar Associations may reside in and around Delhi. To exclude such advocates would be unreasonable and contrary to the object of the Scheme itself."

Lauding the Scheme the Court said that  The Chief Minister’s Advocates Welfare Scheme  announced by the GNCTD is a Scheme that has a laudable objective of recognising the role of lawyers in protecting the rights of citizens and their constructive role in society. However, the condition in the Scheme that it would be applicable only to residents in Delhi with Voter IDs, "is held to be discriminatory and arbitrary as the subclassification from amongst the advocates enrolled with the Bar Council of Delhi, has no rational nexus with the object to be achieved. Accordingly, the Scheme shall be extended to all advocates registered with the Bar Council of Delhi, whose names and credentials are verified, without insistence of Voter ID showing residence in Delhi".

Accordingly, the Court directed that for the current year’s policies, all advocates who had registered themselves and are eligible for the benefits under the Scheme shall be extended the benefit.

Insofar as the re-opening of registration for new advocates is concerned, the Court proposed evolving a proper scheme. Re-opening of the registration, for the current year, would not be possible considering that this is the first year of the implementation of the Scheme and the number of advocates who were considered by the Committee in late 2019 and early 2020 was already frozen. For the future, however, registration would have to be re-opened", the Court said.

Case Title: Govind Swarup Chaturvedi Vs. GNCTD