Says counsels must be assigned to courts
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, July 24: A Division Bench of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court comprising Justice Atul Sreedharan and Justice Puneet Gupta today expressed displeasure over absence of State counsels and warned of imposing costs.
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After hearing Advocates Manik Bhardwaj and Rajneesh Raina for the petitioner whereas AAG Amit Gupta for the UT, the DB observed, “pursuant to the directions given earlier in the morning, the Law Secretary, Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir appeared before this court through virtual mode. However, we express displeasure in strong terms with regard to the absence of State counsels when the matters are listed”.
“One of us (Justice Atul Sreedharan) has been expressing this problem for over a year. But despite persistently communicating the problem to Advocate General’s office, no action has been taken”, DB said, adding “anomaly that exists here is that counsels are assigned departments rather than specific courts where every counsel on behalf of the State is expected to handle every case rather than of specific departments”.
“The problem caused by the existing system is that when the matters are called out, the court is informed that the counsel on behalf of the Union Territory is on his feet before another court representing the same department”, the DB said, adding “this is no longer acceptable to the court”.
DB ordered that henceforth, counsels must be assigned to courts and they should be in a position to handle every file and every case representing the interest of Union Territory before that court. However, the DB does take note of the fact that certain cases requiring expertise of specific counsels may be assigned to such counsels. But for such exceptional cases, the counsel assigned to a particular court is expected to handle all cases before that court, the DB added.
“From tomorrow onwards, if the counsels for the Union Territory Government are not present before the court and reason for their absence is on account of appearance before another court on the ground of appearing for a particular department, this court shall be at liberty to impose a cost on the State of Rs 5,000 or more at the very first instance”, the DB directed.
The DB further said, “this order is being passed out of sheer exasperation that this court has experienced for more than a year, where repeatedly when matters are called out and the court is ready to hear and decide the matter, the same cannot culminate in any effective hearing on account of the absence of the counsel for the Union Territory Government and the matter is passed over in the first round and thereafter when the counsel is available to argue the matter, the court may be in the midst of hearing another case and therefore, the case gets adjourned on account of the non-availability of the counsel for the State/UT”.
The DB directed that copy of this order be sent to the Law Secretary, Union Territory of J&K under the signature of the Registrar Judicial.
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