The Madras High Court on Friday wanted to know whether the State government would come forward to provide medical insurance cover to around 65,000 advocates enrolled with the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
Justices N. Kirubakaran and R. Pongiappan requested Advocate General R. Shunmugasundaram to take instructions from the State government within two weeks since many lawyers had to undergo great turmoil during the pandemic.
The judges made the request during the hearing of a public interest litigation petition filed by activist lawyer Sudha Ramalingam. She told the Bench that the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) had made an electoral promise to provide insurance cover to lawyers.
After hearing her, the judges said that the Delhi and Andhra Pradesh governments appeared to be bearing a major quantum of the premium to be paid by lawyers for a group insurance scheme. They said a similar exercise could be undertaken in Tamil Nadu too.
Justice Kirubakaran said there was a model where out of the annual premium of ₹5,000 per lawyer, the State government contributed ₹4,000 and individual lawyers were asked to pay ₹1,000. He asked the Advocate General to use his good offices and persuade the government to implement it.
The senior judge also told the Advocate General that many lawyers had died due to COVID-19 and their families were in dire need of money. He said the government could also consider helping those families.
