The Allahabad High Court has asked the State government to look into increasing compensation amount to be received by family members of deceased advocates.

“The Financial Assistance Scheme for Advocates was notified by the government and the amount of compensation fixed at Rs 5 lakh vide order dated 09.12.2015. In fact, during this period, the corpus fund of the scheme has gone up from Rs 20 crore to Rs 330 crore,” said a Division Bench of Justice Ajit Kumar and Justice Garima Prashad.

“The compensation to be paid to the dependent family member of the deceased advocate has remained at Rs 5 lakh till date. We want the Government to look into the aspect of enhancing the compensation amount which is to be given under the scheme,” the Court added.

“We leave it to the wisdom of the State Government to enhance the amount of compensation to be paid to the dependents of the deceased advocates under financial assistance scheme. Let the Government come up with an affidavit as to what amount it proposes to enhance towards the compensation under financial assistance scheme, and we will pass our order accordingly. If a proper affidavit in this regard is not filed by the next date fixed, this Court will be compelled to take a serious view of the matter,” the Court said.

The Court was hearing a petition filed by a widow of an advocate seeking interest to be paid to her on account of delayed disposal of her application which sought compensation of ₹5 lakh. She had filed an application under the scheme in 2020 but received the compensation only in 2025.

On July 7, the Court had taken suo motu notice of the delay and asked Member Secretary of the Uttar Pradesh Advocate Welfare Fund Trustee Society, Lucknow (respondent No.4) ‘trust’ to respond why such delay is being caused by the Trust in disbursing compensation to needy and eligible dependents of deceased advocates.

The Court was informed that the applications submitted under the scheme are routed through Bar Council of Uttar Pradesh. It added that since relevant guidelines have not been complied with by either of them (petitioner/aplicants), the applications either get pending there or are sent back to State Bar Council for verification and compliances.

It was stated that at present there are 1,207 applications pending with the State Council only on account of deficiencies.

The Court criticised Bar Council for verification being delayed by them. “The Bar Council has already the roll of advocates who are registered with it. Once any dependent files an application for compensation u/s 10 of the Scheme, it will ensure that all the forms are duly filled up along with supporting documents only and thereafter forward the same to the trust for disbursement,” the Court said.

“We fail to understand as to why the Bar Council sends to Trust such applications with insufficient details or are such deficient application sent back to Council for not being accompanied by relevant material documents that results in delayed disposal of the application by the Trust,” the Bench added.

The Court directed Bar Council of Uttar Pradesh to file an affidavit within two weeks specifying guidelines it proposes to follow to expedite the process of forwarding applications moved by dependents of deceased advocates in future.

The Court further took note of the fact that the trust is disbursing compensation to dependants of advocates only by using the interest earned on its corpus.

“The delayed disposal of applications result due to this manner of releasing compensation”, the Court noted. It further added that probably the interest being generated is not sufficient to meet the day-to-day requirement of the Trust.

“We are not oblivious to the fact that once the corpus gets utilized by the Trust for giving compensation, the same cannot be revived except by way of financial assistance from the State Government. Thus the Trust will have to either start disbursement of compensation from its corpus available with it or alternatively demand further financial assistance from the State,” the Court said.

Considering the financial position of the trust, the Court directed it to seek financial assistance from State government within the next 30 days. The Court further said that in case the government delays granting financial assistance, then trust can liquidate FDs of corpus amount to pay compensation to eligible applicants without any delay.

“We hope that the State Government will take a pragmatic view in the matter in providing necessary financial assistance to the Trust. Let this affidavit be filed along with the action taken report in the next hearing,” the Bench said.

The matter has been next posted for hearing on October 5.