JUDGMENT :

Prathiba M. Singh, J.

1. Insurance for lawyers has been an aspiration for several years. Though more than two decades have passed since the enactment of the Advocates Welfare Fund Act, 2001, group life insurance and Mediclaim/health insurance for lawyers, has merely remained in the statute books. It is under these circumstances that the Chief Minister’s Advocates Welfare Scheme (hereinafter, ‘Scheme’) for advocates enrolled with the Bar Council of Delhi (hereinafter, ‘BCD’), was approved and launched in 2019 in recognition of the contribution of lawyers and advocates. The stated object of the Scheme is set out in the Background note put up before the Cabinet of the GNCTD, as under:

“1. Lawyers have played a central role since time immemorial in not only drafting the Constitution but in protecting the citizenry’s basic rights and upholding the basic concepts of secularism, democracy and egalitarianism and usher in persistent reforms since Independence. Advocates have been the ta