Delhi High Court: A petition was filed concerning the outstanding bills of the petitioner who is a lawyer and was a counsel engaged by the GNCTD as she had raised various memos for her professional services, which were outstanding and not being cleared by the respondents. Prathiba M Singh, J., directed GNCTD to take steps immediately for operationalising the OSWS portal and for inaugurating/starting the same within the next one month.
As per order dated 07-07-2021, the Court noted that that Counsels cannot be made to wait endlessly for clearing of their outstanding payments for the professional services they have rendered and directed that there was a need to put in place a streamlined mechanism which is centralised to expedite and make timely payment. As per another order dated 23-08-2021, the Court noted that the entire process of clearing of lawyers’ bills needs to be improved and streamlined and timelines needed to be fixed for clearing of bills failing which, the Government ought to pay interest on the bills of lawyers. In response to the directions of the Court, the GNCTD submitted that a Single Window System for clearance of the bills of Lawyers was being put in place.
However, the Court observed that the commencement of the Single Window Portal had been delayed for more than a year due to technical and coordination issues at the GNCTD. The court vide order dated 07-03-2023, directed the GNCTD to engage two technical personnel, even if on a contractual basis, to ensure that the day to day running of the portal can be managed and administered, however, the delay persisted due to non-engagement of required technical personnel in operationalising the Single Window System for payment of dues of government Counsels.
On 02-11-2023, the IT team of the Law Department, GNCTD has given a demonstration of the portal, which has been created namely – Online Single Window System (hereinafter, ‘OSWS’) for processing of bills of advocates, who appear for GNCTD in the form of a video presentation consisting of several slides. The Court noted that in terms of the portal, the following steps are to be taken for the purpose of any advocate’s bill to be submitted and processed on the portal:
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Creation of username and password on the said web portal OSWS. It was submitted that most of the GNCTD panel lawyers have been allotted username and password.
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In the second step, the advocate, creates his or her own profile on the portal and can submit their personal information on the basis of the work done.
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In the third step, it is observed that upon the submission of documents by the users, the same is processed through three levels i.e. L1, L2 and L3 i.e., two dealing assistants as L1 and L2; and one Dealing Officer as L3, on the OSWS.
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Once the documents and bills submitted by the users are processed and reviewed by two dealing assistants and a dealing officer, a memo of the review goes to the Drawing and Disbursing Officer (DDO). The DDO sanctions the payments, and thereafter the subject matter of the user is sent to the Principal Accounts Officer (hereinafter, PAO) for the release of payments.
During the proceedings, the Court put a query relating to timelines, IT Team of the Law Department, replied that the OSWS software has a built-in timeline and the maximum time within which the memos can pass through each level of officials, on the said web portal is between 3 to 7 days and the overall timeline for clearing of the bill would, therefore, be no more than 20 to 25 days.
Thus, the Court directed GNCTD and the officials concerned to take steps immediately for operationalising the OSWS portal and for inaugurating/starting the same within a month and file a report qua functioning of the portal in at least 2 weeks.
[Anjana Gosain v GNCT, 2023 SCC OnLine Del 7153, decided on 02-11-2023]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For respondents: Mr. Sameer Vashisht, ASC, Civil, GNCTD with Ms. Harshita Nathrani, Adv.
Mr. Bharat Parashar, Principal Secretary. (through VC)
Ms. Nandita Rao, Adv.,
Mr. Shubham Prasad (GP).
