Patna lawyers go on indefinite strike

14/03/2008

Patna, (Bihar Times): Over 3,000 lawyers of the Patna civil court went on an indefinite strike from Friday to protest steep hike in court fees introduced by Bihar government recently. The state government raised the fees doubling these in most cases and increasing it four-fold in case of public interest litigation (PILs).

According to Jaiprakash Singh, public prosecutor in charge of the court, the lawyers have gone on an indefinite strike to protest the steep hike in court fees for various types of cases as it will make seeking justice by the common man costlier.

It needs to be mentioned that over 8,000 lawyers of the Patna high court had abstained from work on
February 28 and 29 to protest the new hike announced in the state budget for the financial year 2008-09. The state government rejected the demand stating that the strike has more to do with the lawyers association election.

The charge for filing a PIL in the high court would go up to Rs 1000 from Rs 250. The fixed court fee for presenting vakalatnama was increased from Rs 25 to Rs 50 and the rate for procuring copies of judgements and other proceedings in the court raised from one rupee to Rs ten per page.

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