It is an informal ``work to rule'' being practised by the PAs, the result of a notice issued by the high court administration last week restraining them from giving copies of orders to litigants or their advocates. The reason? It is apparently ``breeding corruption,'' where some PAs are allegedly charging large sums of money for giving these copies.

Lawyers and members of the bar have only just started awakening to the notice. On Tuesday, advocate Narendra Bandiwadekar had a strange complaint before the bench of Justice M B Ghodeswar and Justice S Radhakrishnan. Even though his client, a XIIth standard student Johann John had won a caseobtaining admission to a college, he was unable to execute it since a copy of the order was not given to him. ``The PA says according to the rules he is to make four copies, which are to be sent to various departments. He is not entitled to make any more copies or give me a copy,'' he told the bench. The bench then passed a specific order directing the PA to give a copy.

``Well, we will now have a two-line order, but with lengthy directions - directing the PA to give a copy, directing the associate to authenticate the copy... etc,'' noted a legal source, laughing. But when you are a lawyer or a litigant whose judgement copy is immediately necessary to get that all important college admission or stop that imminent demolition, it is no laughing matter.

And almost all lawyers and members of the bar have criticised the notice as one akin to ``throwing the baby with the bathwater.'' While nobody denies some PAs take exorbitant money per page (sometimes up to Rs 50) for typing out those copies, there are manywho do it without naming any sum. ``There has to be a system,'' said a senior lawyer. ``You cannot have a blanket ban. Let some amount of money be fixed. Let there be a regular receipt issued.'' Neither is the notice expected to curb corruption. Those in a hurry to collect the copies will have to grease palms anyway, lawyers point out.

The problem apparently lies in the system. According to the rules, every litigant or lawyer has a right to obtain a certified copy of the order from the department of certified copies after an order is passed. The department is battling a paucity of staff. ``Nobody talks of increasing the staff of the department. Even if you increase the department strength to 2,000 per cent,'' said a senior advocate, ``you couldn't complete the backlog.'' At present, an application for a certified copy bears fruit any time within six months to a year!

In such a situation, getting a copy from the PA, duly authenticated from the associate helped both the lawyers and the litigants. If thelawyer has to go in for an appeal, obtaining the unsigned copy helps in preparing the appeal - where the certified copy - when obtained is duly attached to the brief.

It was in the time of former Chief Justice M B Shah, recall senior advocates, that a nominal sum of Rs five was fixed per page of the order copy to be paid by the litigants or the lawyers. The amount fluctuated ``depending on the connections,'' but it apparently worked till now.

Last week's notice has also created outrage among the PAs and the associates. Apparently, the association of the PAs had sought a meeting with the Chief Justice on the notice. However, when asked the Prothonotary and Senior Master, A R Bapat, shot back, ``Why should the media be interested in internal matters of the high court administration? You seem to be prompted by somebody.''