LDF govt spent Rs 6.95 crore on SC legal professionals to look in HC
3 min read Express News Service
KOCHI: The LDF authorities has disbursed a whopping Rs 6.95 crore to senior advocates of the Supreme Court to battle the instances for the federal government within the Kerala High Court, in line with the statistics collated by TNIE.As per the knowledge acquired via an RTI question, the state authorities has additionally spent one other Rs 14.19 crore as legal professionals’ charges to look on its behalf within the Supreme Court.
The authorities had come beneath criticism that it had engaged high SC legal professionals to battle greater than 10 high-profile petitions together with Oommen Chandy’s petition to quash the photo voltaic fee’s report, Periya twin homicide and LIFE Mission corruption case within the HC.
Besides, about Rs 33.55 lakh was spent on offering air journey and resort lodging for these legal professionals. The RTI knowledge exposes the exorbitant expenditure by the state authorities to rent high-profile legal professionals whereas it has employed 130 authorities regulation officers together with advocate-general, director-general of prosecution, two further advocates-general, state lawyer, further director-general of prosecution and particular authorities pleaders to serve the state in authorized affairs.
“Especially in Periya murder case, the ultimate beneficiary of avoiding the CBI investigation would be the accused alone. If the investigation is retained with the state agency, all accused will be under the protection of CPM-patronised police. To protect them, the state strongly resisted the CBI probe for which the state exchequer lost crores. In effect, engaging senior SC counsel for defending a case in the HC would tantamount to underestimating the capacity of the state law officers in the HC,” stated former director-general of prosecution T Asaf Ali.
If the arms of the state are clear in LIFE Mission rip-off, there isn’t any motive to withstand the CBI probe which is necessary beneath the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act. The authorities spent Rs 55 lakh to object to a CBI probe. “If this was utilised for rehabilitation of the flood victims, that would have been a solace for a minimum of ten families,” he stated. The RTI reply additionally revealed that the federal government had paid Rs 1.3 crore to senior SC lawyer Pallav Shishodia for showing within the Kerala HC in lottery instances.
Interestingly, the state had paid Rs 1.2 crore to senior SC lawyer Ranjith Kumar to oppose the petition filed by former chief minister Chandy looking for to quash the photo voltaic fee’s report. However, the state misplaced the case and the HC partly allowed the petition expunging the fee’s findings towards him based mostly on a letter allegedly written by the accused, Saritha S Nair, levelling sexual allegations.
The state owed to senior SC advocate Amarendra Sharan Rs 22 lakh for representing the state to oppose the plea filed by mother and father of slain youth Congress chief Shuhaib at Kannur looking for a CBI probe into their son’s brutal homicide. At the identical time, Rs 6.44 lakh was paid to Vijay Hansaria on this case. For showing within the lottery instances filed in 2016 and 2017, the federal government had spent Rs 5,31,965 for air journey and resort lodging of senior advocates Rakesh Dwivedi and Sansrithi Pathak. It had additionally paid Rs 7,56,808 for Pallav Shishodia’s air journey and resort lodging.The authorities paid Rs 30 lakh to F S Nariman and Rs 12 lakh to Subhash Chander Sarma for session in instances associated to Kerala from May 20, 2016, to January 21, 2021.
G1 cr given to 4 SC standing counsel
In reply to the question to furnish the main points of quite a lot of standing counsel appointed by the state authorities for showing within the SC and their month-to-month remuneration paid over the past one yr, the federal government replied that J3,000 was paid per thirty days as retainer charge for every of them, apart from their charges. However, throughout 2019-20, J1,00,59,508 was disbursed to 4 SC standing counsel for representing the state.
