The co-ordination committee of the three advocates’ associations of Patna High Court has made a slew of demands to the authorities concerned to help them discharge their professional duties smoothly.

Senior advocate Yogesh Chandra Verma, who is also the chairperson of the co-ordination committee, met Justice Shiva Kirti Singh on Wednesday to apprise him of the problems faced by the lawyers practising at the high court (see chart) and sought his intervention for the speedy resolution of the problems.

Verma on Thursday said: “We pointed all the issues to Justice Singh, who patiently heard our demands and pledged to would look into them.”

Describing the various problems, he said there was seating arrangement for 1,500-2,000 lawyers though 10,000 advocates practise in the court.

The three associations — one each of the advocates, lawyers and barristers — have 7,500, 2,200 and 500 members, respectively.

“The court administration should immediately start construction of the planned five-storey building, where the lawyers could sit,” said the chairperson of the co-ordination committee.

The state government has recently provided 1 bigha land at the southern end of L.N. Mishra Institute on Bailey Road, just adjacent to the court, for the building.

“The construction should not take more than a year,” Verma said.

Vivek Prasad, another advocate, said: “The unavailability of sitting arrangement is serious problem. Advocates are often unable to discuss cases with their juniors, colleagues or clients and this adversely affects their work.”

Another problem that lawyers feel needs immediate resolution is the daily cause-list.

Prasad said: “The daily cause-list — a record of cases to be taken up on a particular day — is illegible and unpunctual. On Wednesday, it was delivered to lawyers who subscribe to it very late. Also it had only 70 pages instead of 200.”

Rajesh Verma, the standing counsel at the high court, said that the cause-list is ineligible because of its poor quality of print and small font-size.

Besides the cause-list, lawyers also experienced problems in filing petitions because of the inordinate delay in stamp reporting.

An important stage of filing petition, it involves verification of a fresh appeal by court officials to weed out inconsistencies. Delay in the process further holds up the filing of the petitions.