Expansion
The Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court has ordered the state government to file a counter affidavit by September 4 in a case challenging the process of appointment of government lawyers in the High Court. During the hearing of the case, the state government’s affidavit could not be filed as per the earlier order of the court. On this, the court ordered that the government should finalize the affidavit and file it by September 4, the date of next hearing.
The division bench of Justice Rajan Roy and Justice Om Prakash Shukla gave this order on the public interest litigation of Mahendra Singh Pawar in the year 2017. In this, a request has been made to adopt a transparent and clean process while questioning the binding process of government lawyers deployed to plead on behalf of the state government in the High Court.
This important issue has also been raised in the petition that on what basis is it decided how many government lawyers are required to be deployed in the civil and criminal side in Allahabad High Court and Lucknow Bench? During the hearing, Advocate General Ajay Kumar Mishra also appeared on behalf of the state government through video conferencing.
During the hearing on Thursday, the Chief Standing Counsel of the State Government Shailendra Kumar Singh told the court that the counter affidavit has been prepared as per the first order of the court but it has not been finalized yet. On this, the court ordered that the government should finalize the affidavit and file it by the next hearing date of September 4.
Earlier, the court had asked the state government how many government lawyers are needed in the Allahabad and Lucknow benches of the High Court. The court was not satisfied with the reply filed by the government on the earlier order in this matter. The court had ordered the government to file a better counter affidavit.
