TN government yet to clear Rs 10.48 crore pending bills of SC lawyers

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu is yet to clear Rs 10.48 crore fee bills pertaining to advocates of Supreme court, according to official sources. This comes as the State government is planning to upload details of Supreme Court cases department wise in Court Case Monitoring System (CCMS), an IT application platform which will monitor cases pending against the concerned department or officials.

It is learnt that the fee bills worth Rs 80.30 lakh pertaining to Advocate-General of Tamil Nadu is pending for settlement. Departments which have bills pending worth more than Rs 4 lakh include Commercial Taxes and Registration department, Home, Industries, Public Works Department, Tourism, culture and revenue departments.

It is learnt that a high-level meeting convened by the chief secretary has taken serious note of it and urged all departments to settle the bills at the earliest.As per figures available from 2016, Tamil Nadu has nearly 1,800 cases pending in Supreme Court and Home department has the highest number of 607 pending cases, the highest among the departments. It is followed by Commercial Tax and Registration Department (117), environment and forest department (101), state electricity board (95) and state housing and urban development department (86).

Sources said most of the pending cases have been reduced due to the efforts taken by the government. The housing and urban development department now has only 28 cases pending in Supreme Court.It is learnt that the State government has instructed all nodal officers of various departments to upload the current contempt petitions in Madras high court in the CCMS website so that they are reviewed periodically. 
Sources said the State government is also reviewing the list of old contempt petitions which were handed over by Madras High court.

Fact-file  
1Tamil Nadu has to clear Rs 10.48 crore worth of fee bills pertaining to advocates of Supreme court
2 Fee bills worth Rs 80.30 lakh pertaining to Advocate-General of Tamil Nadu is pending for settlement
3 Pending cases of many departments including housing and urban development department in Supreme court has been reduced due to pro-active measures