Allahabad High Court rejects lawyer’s pleas seeking Rs 4.8 crore ‘pending’ fees from UP

“This Court cannot be oblivious to the fact that ordinarily dispute relating to payment of Counsel fees should not be brought in a court of law and resolved by mediation/conciliation between the parties, even if one party may be the State,” the bench noted.

Plea seeking payment of dues

The petitioner claimed that he had been engaged as special counsel for matters arising from Sitapur, Lucknow, Hardoi and Raebareli districts and was entitled to fees under government orders issued in 2009 and 2011. According to him, he had been a counsel for the state of Uttar Pradesh for around 16 years and claimed that no payment has been made to him even though the fee bills pertaining to special appeals were accepted by the state.

The state opposed the pleas, arguing that a writ petition for recovery of fees by an advocate is not maintainable and is essentially within the jurisdiction of a civil court.

Justices Shekhar B Saraf and Abdhesh Kumar Chaudhary observed that there was a dispute between the parties regarding the fees payable for each special appeal.

It further submitted that the petitioner was engaged as a panel lawyer for the Basic Shiksha Parishad to conduct special appeal cases before the high court. The state said he was removed from the panel in October 2011 and many of the claims pertained to periods outside his engagement.

The counsel appearing on behalf of the District Basic Education Department submitted that the petitioner neither enclosed any acknowledgment letter issued by the department to appear in the cases nor any fee bill he had allegedly raised.

‘Plea not maintainable’

The bench found that the petitioner failed to submit any material showing that the state had admitted the claimed dues. It observed that neither admitted fee bills nor acknowledgments of liability were produced.

“This Court is clear in its mind that there are no admission or acknowledgment of dues/outstanding of the petitioner by the respondents-State for which a mandamus (judicial command) can be issued for payment to him,” it stated.

The high court observed that there was a dispute between the parties regarding the fees payable for each special appeal. While the petitioner claimed that he was entitled to the maximum fee prescribed under the government order, the department argued that the order only laid down a range of fees and that no agreement had ever been reached on the actual amount payable.

In view of the conflicting claims, the court held that the matter involved complex, disputed questions of fact, which could not be adjudged in proceedings under Article 226 (power of high courts to issue writs) of the Constitution.

The state authorities also raised a preliminary objection that the petitioner’s claim was filed after the limitation period. Referring to the petitioner’s own case that the fees had remained unpaid since 2009, they argued that the claim had been pursued after over 16 years.

The court, however, declined to examine this argument. “This Court does not wish to go into the said question of claim being time-barred as we are not only conscious of the fact that limitation is a mixed question of law and fact, but we have already stated that the present writ petitions are not maintainable for recovery of the fee-bills, as the claims of fee-bills have not been admitted by the respondents,” it added.

The court, hence, dismissed all four petitions. However, it allowed the petitioner to pursue his claims before a competent civil court.