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Newsletter No. 1 dated 5th July 2004
Dear Member, 1.We have started this News Letter with the purpose of appraising of the progress of the Association to the members of the SCBA. The members who would like to receive this newsletter on their e-mail may kindly communicate their e-mail address to the office of the Association. 2.The election, to the Managing Committee was held on 23rd April 2004. On 24th April 2004 there was a joint meeting of the outgoing and incoming executive committees at 2.30 prn, and the new executive committee took over charge from the outgoing committee. GENERAL BODY MEETING 3. A general body meeting was held on Tuesday, the 27th April 2004, which was attended by more than 700 members. The President informed the General Body that every member of the Executive Committee has pledged to act unitedly to further the interest of the Supreme Court Bar Association and each and every member. 32 of the Supreme Court Bar Association advocates addressed the General Body meeting and gave their suggestions. The executive committee will look into their suggestions and decide on the future course of action. DINNER HOSTED BY THE NEW EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 4. On 27th April 2004 the newly elected executive committee hosted a dinner at the Supreme Court Lawns, where all members of the SCBA were invited. The dinner was attended by a large number of members who had ample opportunity to informally interact with each other. FAREWELL FUNCTION FOR THE HON'BLE JUDGES OF THE SUPREME COURT. 5. Farewell function was held at the Supreme Court Lawns in honour of Hon'ble Mr. Justice V.N. Khare on his retirement as the Chief justice of India. A farewell function on retirement was held in honour of Hon'ble Mr. Justice S. Rajendra Babu, (Chief Justice of India), Hon'ble Mr. Justice Doraiswamy Raju and Hon'ble Mr. Justice Brijesh Kumar, Judges of Supreme Court on 7th May, 2004. The Supreme Court Bar Association is thankful to Mr. P.P. Rao, Senior Advocate and Mr. K.T.S. Tulsi, Senior Advocate who were kind enough to meet the expenses of the farewell functions and cost of purchase of a mike system. Earlier the Association used to hire mike for every function. We have now purchased a mike system for permanent use, which will save the hire charges of Rs.2,200/- per function. The system of collecting contribution from the members of the Supreme Court Bar Association for farewell function is discontinued. HOUSING SOCIETY AND ALLOTMENT OF LAND 6.The housing problem of the Members of the Bar has been drawing great attention of this Executive Committee. A General Body Meeting of Supreme Court Lawyers Welfare Society was held on 6th May 2004 at the Main Auditorium, Krishna Menon Bhawan. Several members addressed the General Body Meeting. It is decided that the first preference for allotment will be given to the existing members of the Welfare Society. However, in order to know as to how many members of the SCBA who are not members of the welfare society would be interested in the allotment of the land or flats, they may kindly send a letter of their interest to the office. The Executive Committee has been constituted as required by the statutory provision. The statutory provision required every member to pay a sum of Rs.100/- per year. Failure to pay leads to loss of membership. It was found that Members of the Housing Society were never informed about the legal requirement to pay Rs. 100/- per year nor was any demand notice issued. It was therefore decided to write to the members and give them time to pay Rs.400/- for the years 2001-2004 on or before 31.07.2004. I do hope that Members of the Welfare Society will cooperate in this regard and send their cheques in the name of Supreme Court Lawyers3 Welfare Society to the office of the Supreme Court Bar Association at the earliest. It gives me immense pleasure to inform all the Members of the Housing Scheme that Hon'ble Mulayam Singh Yadav the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh was kind enough to assure his help to the welfare society for allotment of land at Noida. The letter with regard to the allotment of land in NOIDA District has been written to the Chief Executive Officer of the NOIDA Development Authority and Commissioner of Meerut Division. The members of the Executive Committee met Shri. H.R. Bhardwaj, the Hon'ble Minister for Law and Justice on 16.6.2004 for more than an hour and half and they have requested him to see that land is allotted in Delhi for the Welfare Society of SCBA members. Mr. Bhardwaj has promised to help. Mr. Bhardwaj. has also agreed to look into all the problems of the Supreme Court Bar Association. CONSTRUCTION OF CHAMBERS 7.The Association requested Hon'ble Mr. Justice R.C. Lahoti the Chief Justice of India to look into delay in commencement of construction for chambers building at Dobhi Ghat. Some technical objections were raised by NDMC. A meeting of the officers of NDMC and the Registrars as well as CPWD took place on 2nd July, 2004. The objections which NDMC had raised have been removed and CPWD has deposited a sum of Rs.4 lacs for shifting of the NDMC Cables. On Tuesday the 6th July the draft plan will be handed over by the Architect of NDMC to the Construction Division of CPWD. The digging work has started and the actual construction will definitely start before end of this month. We are thankful to Hon'ble Chief Justice of India for taking necessary steps for removing all the obstacles in the way of starting construction work. LAND FOR CONSTRUCTION OF CHAMBERS 8.As far as land for Chambers is concerned, we are discussing to have the land allotted around Appu Ghar or at Sikandara Road. We have requested Mr. H.R. Bhardwaj, Hon'ble Minister for Law and Justice. He has promised to help. CONSTRUCTION OF SECURITY PERSONS BARRACKS 9.The problem about construction of security persons barracks has been amicably sorted out by their using only about l/3rd of the space, which they initially proposed to use. We are thankful to the Hon'ble the Chief Justice of India for his kind consideration, in this regard. RENOVATION WORK AT LIBRARY, CHAMBER BLOCKS, CANTEEN, LOUNGE ETC. 10.The Office bearers along with senior officials of the Supreme Court Registry, Civil and Electrical Engineers of CPWD and Telephone Wing of MTNL surveyed the entire Supreme Court compound, Libraries, Canteens, Lounge, Ladies Bar Room, Lunch Room, Chamber Blocks and various jobs which were to be carried out by the C.P.W.D. 65 MTNL were pinpointed to them and I am happy to inform you that C.P.W.D. has completed most of the job. Rest of the work will continue hereafter. The Plaza Canteen for the Advocates is being renovated A.C. has also been installed. The kitchen has been given a new facelift and the advocate's canteen has become fully functional. That the First Floor Canteen has also been renovated and new electric lines have been laid and the A.C. donated by Mr. K.K. Venugopal, Senior Advocate has also started functioning, which will provide cool and cozy atmosphere for Members using Plaza and First Floor Canteen. Air curtain is put up so that temperature inside the first floor canteen remain cool. RENOVATION OF ROOM WHICH WAS ALLOTTED MORE THAN TWO YEARS BACK 11.A room was allotted to SCBA on the ground floor when Hon'ble Mr. Justice G.B. Pattanaik was the Chief Justice of India. This room has not been put to any use. The Executive Committee decided to renovate/furnish the said room allotted to the Supreme Court Bar Association and the work is going on and is likely to be completed by end of July. That the First Floor Cafeteria which was used for holding the Executive Committee meetings was causing great inconvenience to the Members of the Bar using the cafeteria. The present Executive Committee meetings were being held in the New Chamber Block. This room will be used for the office work of SCBA and to hold meetings of the Executive Committee of SCBA as well as meetings of various sub committees and meeting of the Executive Committee of the welfare society. FUND RAISING 12. The present Executive Committee is trying their level best to raise funds by approaching Senior Members, Law firm partners and other advocates who can afford to donate generously towards the expenses to be incurred by the Association. All the Hon'ble members are requested to help. PRINTING OF DIRECTORY 2004 13.The previous Executive Committee undertook the task of printing of Directory-2004 of the Supreme Court Bar Association in the last week of April, 2004 and order was placed with the printer. The Directory-2004 will be available to the Members of the Bar in the month of July 2004. FACELIFT AND UPKEEP 14.We have given special attention to the cleanliness and better work of distempering/polishing of the furniture and fixtures. Some improvements have been made in the canteens, lunch room, the lounge, Ladies Bar Room and toilet block side and wherever possible within the limited budgets. We are also trying to have better flower pots etc in front of the Court Rooms. We have requested Hon'ble the Chief Justice of India to provide small sitting Places out side court rooms, REGISTRATION OF SPECIAL LEAVE PETITIONS ETC. 15.A meeting was held with Mr. B.M. Gupta, Registrar Judicial (now Registrar General) to discuss the difficulties that the Members of the Bar are facing about registration of Special Leave Petitions etc. and the fact that there is a long delay and various unnecessary and technical objections are raised and the objections are raised in installments. Mr. B.M. Gupta called the concerned officials and they have promised to sort out these difficulties. However, in spite of this, if the members of the bar still find any difficulties, they should note down the name of the person concerned and prepare a brief note and send it to me, so that we can send the necessary intimation to the Registrar General. We have pointed out difficulties in obtaining certified copies. Registry has promised to help the members. If the members of the Bar find any difficulty in obtaining certified copies, they may kindly bring it to the notice of any of the office bearers. REALLOCATION OF LOCKERS. 16.Members of the Bar are informed that Advocates who were having lockers in the old Ladies Bar Room on second floor were facing great inconvenience in using their lockers, which were too far fAr i-Vi^rn t-n rp3rh For the convenience of the Members of the Bar the said lockers in the Old Ladies Bar Room have been shifted to the Ground Floor Gallery, GROUP LIFE AND HEALTH INSURANCE FOR MEMBERS OF SUPREME COURT BAR ASSOCIATION: 17.The following Insurance Companies belonging to public sector and Private Sector, namely, Metlife India Insurance Co., Cholamandalam MS Gen. Ins. Co., IFFCO Tokio General Insurance Co., Birla Sun Life Insurance Co. , ING Vysya Life Insurance Co. and others gave demonstration to the members of the Executive Committee about Group Insurance for life and Group Insurance for Medical Claim on 2nd July, 2004. These Companies are going to submit their quotations within a period of 10 days and thereafter the short listed companies would be invited to come to the Supreme Court where Hon'ble members of the SCBA would be able to interact with their representatives about the queries they may have. PARKING 18.A new parking experiment about helping the members of the Bar in parking their cars and helping them in locating it when required by the members is being started. I request the members of the Bar to give their feed back so that before we make it on regular basis the suggestions of the members can be implemented. 19.I am placing this report before the Hon'ble Members with the hope that Members will guide us in improving the functioning of the Supreme Court Bar Association by giving their suggestions in writing. 20.I will keep on informing the Hon'ble Members by issuing newsletter from time to time. Thanking you,
Yours faithfully,
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