HC asks govt to arrange selling of court fee stamps

The Bombay High Court today directed Maharashtra government to open counters all over the city and at the bar associations to sell court fee stamps in view of the current shortage.
A division bench of Justices Abhay Oka and Girish Kulkarni also directed the government to start a new counter to sell stamps at the Sewree sessions court here.
For the last few months, several court fee stamp vendors have closed the business due to the shortage. Advocate Mayuresh Modgi has filed a petition, saying stamps are hard to obtain even on the court premises.
The government told the HC today that till the vendors resume selling stamps, they would be sold at all the bar associations in the state.

"The state government will appoint office staff from the general stamps office in the court premises...," said Additional Controller of Stamps in a letter to the HC.
The court had last week sought explanation from Maharashtra government on the shortage. The government said the Reserve Bank had issued a circular in April to the treasury department asking it to stop the sale through vendors as permission from the central bank had not been obtained.

This led to shortage, said Avinash Gokhale, Modgi's lawyer. He also pointed out that there are only 16 vendors of court fee stamps in Mumbai, against 170 earlier.

Gokhale also said that according to the officials, many vendors closed the business in the aftermath of fake stamp-papers scam, masterminded by Abdul Karim Telgi, and alleged that government was using Telgi's scam as an excuse.
The shortage of stamps hampers the lawyer's fundamental right to freedom of profession as it becomes impossible to submit documents, etc., without stamps, he argued.
The HC asked the government to file an affidavit by November 15 on the availability of stamps.