Lucknow, May 10 (PTI) Ajay Kumar Mishra has been appointed as the new Advocate General of Uttar Pradesh, a proposal to this effect was cleared by the UP Cabinet on Tuesday.
Briefing reporters here, UP’s Finance minister Suresh Kumar Khanna said that Ajay Kumar Mishra has been appointed as the new Advocate General of UP.
Mishra started practising at the Allahabad High Court in 1981, and has been practising at the Supreme Court for the past 10 years. In 1995, he became the youngest additional advocate general of the state.
Mishra’s appointment assumes importance as it comes barely a few days after the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court asked the state government to fill the post of Advocate General (AG) in Uttar Pradesh, left vacant with departure of previous incumbent Raghvendra Singh.
Holding that the office of Advocate General cannot be permitted to be left vacant, the bench had on Friday asked the state government to appoint new Advocate General by May 16.
Singh had resigned soon after the swearing in of the second Yogi government.
“Any vacuum in the office of a constitutional functionary may lead to very unsavoury situation and that would be completely impermissible not only having regard to the scheme of our Constitution, but also bearing in mind various statutory functions which are to be performed by the Advocate General,” observed the bench in the order.
A bench of Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Subhash Vidyarthi passed the order after taking suo motu cognisance of the issue.
“We express our solemn hope and expectation that by the next date of listing, the state government shall take all remedial measures to ensure that the office of Advocate General does not remain either vacant or non-functional,” the bench had observed after hearing the matter.
Local advocate Rama Kant Dixit had filed a PIL seeking the court’s intervention in ensuring the appointment of the new AG.
In the course of hearing, the bench found that the PIL contained many “scandalous pleadings” and discharged the petitioner after a rebuke.
It then entertained the matter suo motu, appointing advocate S C Kashish as amicus curiae to plead the cause in the court.
Responding to the bench’s query, chief standing counsel (in-charge) Abhinav Narayan Trivedi had informed the court that resignation tendered by incumbent AG and the matter relating to appointment of new AG would be taken up simultaneously by the state government and had asked for two weeks’ time.
At this, the bench said that it was too much time and asked the state government to fill the post by May 16, 2022. PTI NAV COR VN VN
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