Lawyer moves HC against Rs1.25L non-refundable fee to contest state Bar council election

Pune/Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: An advocate from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar has filed a writ petition before the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court challenging the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa's (BCMG) election notification of Jan 22 prescribing a Rs1.25 lakh non-refundable deposit for an advocate to contest its poll slated for March 24.Apart from seeking directions to quash and set aside the prescribed deposit as "illegal, arbitrary, exclusionary and violative of provisions under the Constitution of India", advocate Shirish Kamble has prayed for effective and enforceable vertical reservation for OBC, SC and ST advocates in the BCMG election. According to the high court's official website, the petition, registered on Feb 9, is slated for a hearing on Feb 13. Kamble has also filed an objection with the BCMG office in Mumbai against the prescribed deposit with a plea to reduce the same.The petitioner-advocate has contended, among other things, that the Amravati bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court on Jan 5, 2026, quashed and set aside the Bar Council of India's (BCI) proceedings of Sept 25, 2025, that decided in favour of raising the non-refundable security deposit from Rs30,000 to Rs1.25 lakh for all state Bar council elections. Yet the BCMG's insistence on Rs1.25 lakh deposit was legally unsustainable, he contended.BCMG chairman Harshad Nimbalkar told TOI, "The BCMG election is being held as per the Supreme Court's directive seeking a phase-wise conduct of elections of all state Bar councils. The non-refundable security deposit at Rs1.25 lakh has been decided by the BCI for all the state bar council elections and it stands ratified by the Supreme Court by way of a recent decision by the bench headed by the Chief Justice of India."On Feb 5, the SC allowed a bunch of petitions by the BCI seeking transfer of multiple cases (pending on this issue) before different high courts to the Apex Court.The SC noted, "The aforesaid fee has been levied on a pan-India basis, keeping in view the total expenditure likely to be incurred by every State Bar Council. In some of the matters, the precarious financial condition of several state Bar councils has been explained to us, especially as a result of the impact of the substantial reduction of registration/enrolment fee pursuant to the compliance of the judgment rendered by this court in Gaurav Kumar vs Union of India & Others passed in WP(C) No. 352/2023 on July 30, 2024.""It goes without saying that contesting an election is an optional choice of a member of the Bar. Failure to levy a reasonable fee towards election expenditure would result in the costs being passed on to members of the Bar, including those not interested in participating as candidates. The chilling effect of such an additional burden will ultimately be faced by young lawyers, who have just begun their career and who, for no reason attributable to them, will find themselves financially contributing towards the election corpus," the SC said.The bench noted, "Contrary to it, we approve the BCI's decision to recover such expenditure from those contesting the election. If a candidate is serious enough to contest the election, there is no gainsaying that he must also bear the expenditure for such an election."The SC said, "We are of the considered opinion that there is no necessity for any high court to interfere in the fee structure prescribed for conducting the election of state Bar councils. These transfer petitions are allowed. All the relevant cases pending before different high courts are taken on board and the same are, accordingly, dismissed."