E-Bill module: Law Ministry eyes digitisation of advocate fee disbursal

New Delhi, Oct 25 (IANS) The Department of Legal Affairs, Law and Justice Ministry, has launched an initiative to enable the digitisation of the entire process of advocate fee disbursal and forms, a statement said on Saturday.

Earlier, payment of fees to advocates involved physical processing, manual verification, and submission of hard copies to the Pay and Accounts Office, often resulting in delays and paper-intensive workflows. The enhanced e-Bill module now enables end-to-end electronic processing of fee disbursals to Law Officers and Panel Advocates, said the Law and Justice Ministry.

“The enhanced e-Bill module now enables end-to-end electronic processing of fee disbursals to Law Officers and Panel Advocates, eliminating manual paperwork and delays that previously characterised the system,” it said.

The Ministry of Law and Justice said it has achieved a major milestone in procedural simplification by integrating the Legal Information Management and Briefing System (LIMBS) with the Public Financial Management System (PFMS).

“This reform is enabling digitisation of the entire process of advocate fee disbursal and forms an important component of the Government’s broader initiatives of Ease of Doing Business and Digital India,” it said

With further enhancements in the e-Bill module, bills generated by Law Officers and Panel Advocates on the LIMBS platform are now also seamlessly transmitted to PFMS for digital verification, sanction and payment, it said

The integration has made the entire process paperless — reducing processing time, enabling real-time bill tracking, and eliminating human error.

Each claim generates a Claim Reference Number (CRN), enabling administrative units to track progress in real time. Once verified and digitally signed by the Drawing and Disbursing Officer (DDO), payments are released directly to the beneficiary’s bank account through PFMS — without any physical file movement, said the statement.

The Central Agency Section (CAS) of the Department of Legal Affairs implemented the e-Bill module for panel advocate payments through LIMBS in February 2025, and the Department is now preparing to extend the system to other litigation units, including the Delhi High Court, it said.

A proposal for creating a Retainer Fee Module within LIMBS to cover Law Officers’ periodic payments is also being considered for implementation.

--IANS

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