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It is alleged that the respondents have committed the contempt of court in not following the order passed by the High Court for the simple reason that Hon'ble the Supreme Court had only set-aside the direction of the High Court with regard to adhering to the fee Schedule of General Insurance (Public Sector) Association of India (for short, `GIPSA') dated 21.02.2005 w.e.f. 01.11.2004, whereas the other direction of adhering to the Schedule dated 01.01.2009 and 01.04.2014 was admitted by the Insurance Company before the High Court and, therefore, this Court would have the jurisdiction to entertain and try the contempt petitions.

In pursuance to the notice issued by this Court, written statement has been filed alleging that there is no willful disobedience of any 2 of 14 C.O.C.P.No.2807 of 2018 (O&M) {3} order and raised the objection qua maintainability of the contempt petitions in this Court by applying doctrine of merger on the premise that the order dated 09.12.2016 of this Court ceases to exist after having been merged with the order dated 02.07.2018 of Hon'ble the Supreme Court. In Para 8 of the written statement, it has been alleged that the GIPSA Schedule nowhere provides the payment of entire professional fee to the empaneled advocates lump sum in advance as claimed by the petitioner, for, it has been an age- old practice to pay 50% of the fees at the time of assigning the matter and balance 50% at the time of/after conclusion of final hearing in any matter by keeping in mind the long duration taken for decision of the cases as well as scenario of change of advocates and, thus, the aforementioned practice was not in violation of the provisions of GIPSA Schedule. In other words, it was submitted that claim of the petitioner for payment of the entire balance fees as per the Schedule of 2009 and 2014 cannot be paid in advance.

Mr. Akshay Bhan, learned Senior Counsel assisted by Mr.Santosh Sharma, Advocate, representing the petitioner submitted that the Insurance Company has not shown any regard and respect to the orders of this Court and as well as Hon'ble the Supreme Court and cannot be permitted to supplement by adopting the age-old practice in not adhering to the GIPSA Schedule as there is no contingency reflected in the GIPSA Schedule for payment of 50%. Attention of this Court was drawn to the aforementioned Schedule extracted in the judgment of the Division Bench. This Court would have a jurisdiction to try and entertain the contempt petition as the other two directions by adhering to the Schedule of 2009 and 2014 have been upheld by Hon'ble the Supreme Court, thus, doctrine of merger would not apply.

I would be failing in my duty in not extracting the stand of the Insurance Company in supporting the averment of payment 50% fees being an age-old practice, Para 8 of the reply reads thus:-

"It is reiterated that the Hon'ble Supreme Court while modifying the order dated 09.12.2016 of this Hon'ble Court has directed the Company to pay in terms of GIPSA Schedule of 2009 and 2014. The said GIPSA Schedule nowhere provides payment of entire professional fee to the empaneled advocates lump sum in advance as is being claimed by the petitioner. It is submitted that it has been an age-old practice of the Insurance Companies, to pay 50% of fees at the time of assigning a matter and balance 50% at the time of/after conclusion of final hearing in any matter. This practice of splitting of fees was adopted by the Insurance Companies keeping in mind the long duration taken for conclusion of cases as well as scenarios of change in advocate. Therefore, as per the practice, balance 50% of fees is released at the time of conclusion of the matter. The said practice is not in violation of any of the provisions of the GIPSA Schedule. It is submitted that the petitioner has also been admittedly paid 50% of his total fee as per the applicable GIPSA Schedule in the matters that he has been assigned by the Company and the balance 50% shall be paid to him at the conclusion of the pending cases. It is the most respectful submission of the respondents that the respondents are complying with the order dated 02.07.2018 passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court and as a consequence all dues wherever payable are being paid by the Company in a timely manner and all efforts are made to ensure that no fee remains unpaid."