New Delhi, Oct 25 (NationPress) The Department of Legal Affairs, under the Law and Justice Ministry, has initiated a groundbreaking project aimed at digitizing the entire advocate fee disbursal process and related forms, according to a statement released on Saturday.

Previously, the payment of fees to advocates required physical processing, manual verification, and the submission of hard copies to the Pay and Accounts Office. This traditional method often led to delays and cumbersome paper-intensive workflows. The upgraded e-Bill module now facilitates a comprehensive electronic processing system for fee disbursals to Law Officers and Panel Advocates, as indicated by the Law and Justice Ministry.

“The improved e-Bill module allows for a complete electronic processing of advocate fee disbursals, removing the manual paperwork and delays that were common in the previous system,” the statement noted.

The Ministry of Law and Justice highlighted that it has reached a significant milestone in procedural simplification by merging the Legal Information Management and Briefing System (LIMBS) with the Public Financial Management System (PFMS).

“This reform is pivotal in digitizing the entire advocate fee disbursal process and plays a crucial role in the Government’s larger initiatives for Ease of Doing Business and Digital India,” it stated.

With further improvements in the e-Bill module, bills created by Law Officers and Panel Advocates on the LIMBS platform are now efficiently transmitted to PFMS for digital verification, sanction, and payment.

This integration has transformed the entire procedure into a paperless system, hence reducing processing time, allowing real-time bill tracking, and minimizing human error.

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

The Central Agency Section (CAS) of the Department of Legal Affairs rolled out the e-Bill module for panel advocate payments through LIMBS in February 2025, and plans are underway to extend this system to other litigation units, including the Delhi High Court.

A proposal is also under consideration for creating a Retainer Fee Module within LIMBS to accommodate periodic payments for Law Officers.