Why Kerala High Court directed state bar council to refund excess enrolment fee collected from advocates

Section 24(1)(f) of the Advocates Act reads as under-

Subject to the provisions of this Act, and the rules made thereunder, a person shall be qualified to be admitted as an advocate on a State roll, if he fulfills the following conditions, namely-

(f) he has paid, in respect of the enrolment, stamp duty, if any, chargeable under the Indian Stamp Act, 1899, and an enrolment fee payable to the State Bar Council of (six hundred rupees and to the Bar Council of India, one hundred and fifty rupees by way of a bank draft drawn in favour of that Council).

Provided that where such person is a member of the Schedule Castes or the Schedule Tribes and produces a certificate to that effect from such authority as may be prescribed, the enrolment fee payable by him to the State Bar Council shall be (one hundred rupees and to the Bar Council of India, twenty-five rupees).

Background

• Seven young advocates who are members of the Bar Council of Kerala had approached the court challenging the enrollment fee demanded and collected by the bar council.
• The petitioners submitted that the excess payment of Rs.5,000 per person should be refunded since in Gaurav Kumar v Union of India it was declared that the state bar council could not collect any fee in excess of Rs.750 prescribed by law.
• In its counter affidavit, the Bar Council of Kerala acknowledged the Supreme Court judgment and stated that if the petitioners approached the Council, the excess amount collected over and above the statutory fee would be refunded.

Findings

• Since in the counter affidavit the state bar council has agreed to refund the excess amount to the petitioners, further consideration of the contentions raised in this writ petition becomes only an academic nature.
• Having regard to the admitted averments in the counter affidavit of the 1st respondent, there will be a direction to return the excess fee collected from the petitioners immediately, at any rate, within a period of two weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this judgment.
• In the light of the declaration of law by the Supreme Court in Gaurav Kumar’s case, the state bar council cannot collect anything more towards enrollment fee other than the statutorily fixed fee and stamp duty amounting to Rs.750.

What Supreme Court held

In 2024, the Supreme Court had held that State Bar Councils cannot charge more money than what is stipulated under the Advocates Act, 1961.

The direction by the three-judge bench, presided over by CJI D Y Chandrachud and also comprising Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, came while deciding a batch of petitions challenging the enrolment fees charged by SBCs beyond what is prescribed under Section 24(1)(f) of the Act.

The petitioners also pointed out the “miscellaneous fees” charged by the SBCs. The bench said that the SBCs and the Bar Council of India (BCI) cannot demand any enrolment fee other than what is stipulated under section 24(1)(f) of the Act, which prescribes a fee of `750 for the general category and `125 for SC/ST candidates.

The SBCs and BCI have to come up with an appropriate method of charging fees that is “fair not just for the law graduates intending to enrol, but also for advocates already enrolled on the state rolls”, it said.

Levying exorbitant fees as a pre-condition to enrolment serves to “denigrate the dignity of those who face social and economic barriers in the advancement of their legal careers”, the top court said, adding, “dignity is crucial to substantive equality”.