The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to entertain pleas filed by lawyers associations of the apex court which sought directions to the Centre for formulating a scheme to support advocates and other professionals in paying their office rent during the COVID-19 lockdown.
The top court said that prayers in the PILs filed by Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) and lawyers of Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association (SCAORA), are unreasonable and no special consideration can be granted to the lawyers.
A bench of Justices N V Ramana, Sanjay Kishan Kaul and B R Gavai dismissed the petition and granted liberty to senior advocate Kailash Vasudeva, appearing for SCBA to withdraw the plea.
During the hearing Vasudeva said they were not saying rent should not be charged but the non-payment of rent should not be made a ground for eviction during the lockdown.
The bench shot back, tomorrow engineers will come, architects will come. How can we give special consideration to lawyers? This is unreasonable for us to do. There may be old ladies, aged persons as landlords. How can we say this?