Chandigarh: The Manohar Lal Khattar-led Haryana government had promised an “open and transparent” process for the appointment of the state’s law officers, even issuing an advertisement in 2019 calling for eligible candidates, but those selected are the usual suspects — close relatives of judges, politicians and other VIPs.
The list of 90 law officers selected by the advocate general was released Wednesday. It includes Bansuri Swaraj, daughter of former external affairs minister, the late Sushma Swaraj. Bansuri has been appointed an additional advocate general, a post that has also been accorded to Ambika Sood, the wife of the Chandigarh BJP chief Varun Sood.
Other relatives of politicians include Rajat Gautam, the son of the estranged JJP MLA from Narnaund, Ram Kumar Gautam, who has been selected as deputy advocate general.
A number of those selected are also related to judges, both sitting and retired.
They include Trishanjali Sharma, daughter of Justice Rajiv Sharma, one of the senior-most judges of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. She has been selected as a deputy advocate general.
Deepshikha Chauhan, daughter of another HC judge, Jitendra Chauhan, has been appointed as an assistant advocate general while Aman Bahri, the brother of Justice Ritu Bahri of the high court, has been picked as an additional advocate general.
The list includes names of 30 additional advocate generals, 30 deputy advocate generals and 30 assistant advocate generals. Besides these, a host of law officers have been chosen to represent various boards and corporations of the government.
Among those chosen to represent various boards and corporations of the state government is advocate Navin Kaushik who had in 2017 resigned as additional advocate general after a court in Faridabad recommended action against him for allegedly helping the accused in Junaid Khan killing. The 15-year-old youth was stabbed to death by a mob on a train, with the accused allegedly taunting him for being Muslim.
Kaushik has now been brought back to the fold by the BJP-JJP government.
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Law officers to get hefty salaries
The salaries and retainership of these law offices has also increased several fold over the last two years. Until 2017, a deputy advocate general was being paid Rs 80,000 a month while an additional advocate general was paid Rs 1 lakh.
For these fresh appointments, however, a new and much higher salary scale has been fixed. An additional advocate general will now get a salary of Rs 1.8 lakh along with a retainership of Rs 25,000 per month. A deputy AG will get Rs 1.28 lakh a month while the salary of an assistant AG, the lowest in the ranks, is now Rs 88,400 a month.
Appointments to the office of the advocate general in both Punjab and Haryana are traditionally carried out in an arbitrary, pick and choose fashion with the list usually being dominated by relatives of politicians, judges and VIPs, depending on the political party in power.
The BJP-JJP coalition government led by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had after coming to power in October last year announced that unlike earlier, these appointments would be now done through a transparent and open selection process.
The government, for the first time, even issued an advertisement seeking eligible candidates for these 90 law officer posts. It had also fixed a minimum criteria for the selection — for additional advocate general, a lawyer had to have a minimum income of Rs 12 lakh a year, while for a deputy AG’s post, a lawyer should have a minimum income of Rs 8 lakh a year. For the post of assistant AG, the criteria was fixed at 5 lakh a year.
The government received 1,700 applications for these 90 positions. The final selection was done by a three-member committee headed by the advocate general. The other members included the home secretary and the legal remembrancer.
But just like most years, the list is dominated by relatives of judges, politicians and other VIPs.
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The kin of judges & civil servants
A number of those on the list are related to retired judges. They include Sandeep Singh Mann, who has been chosen as an additional advocate general. He is a relative of retired Justice T.P.S. Mann (retd), once of the Punjab and Haryana HC.
Another additional advocate general, Sanjay Mittal, is a relative of Justice S.K. Mittal (retd), who was the Rajasthan High Court chief justice but who also had a stint in the Punjab and Haryana HC.
Harsh Rekha Kapoor, chosen as an assistant advocate general, is the daughter of Justice Amar Dutt (retd), also a former Punjab and Haryana High Court judge.
Sheenu Sura, who has been appointed as deputy advocate general, is the wife of the Panchkula additional district and sessions judge Narendra Sura.
Among those related to civil servants are Deepa Singh, an additional advocate general who is the wife of former Haryana DGP K.P. Singh. Mahima Yashpal Singhal, who is now a deputy advocate general, is the daughter of former DGP and current Haryana Chief Information Commissioner Yashpal Singhal.
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Politicians’ relatives & controversial choices
The list has a large number of those who have links to the ruling BJP.
Ranjana Shahi, now an additional advocate general, is a former BJP councillor from Chandigarh. Ranveer Singh Arya, also an additional advocate general, is the son of BJP leader Bacchan Singh Arya.
Pankaj Midda, another additional advocate general, is a relative of Haryana BJP MLA Krishan Midda. Additional advocate general Vivek Chauhan is the son of J.K. Chauhan, the former chairman of the Himachal Pradesh State Services Selection Board.
Advocate Ravinder Singh Dhull, appointed as an additional advocate general, is the son of BJP leader Parminder Singh. Dhull was the main petitioner in a PIL filed in the High Court in 2017 to check the violence in Panchkula following the conviction of Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim. The case had put the state government in the dock over the issue and still being heard by the court.
The list also includes relatives of those with links to the JJP, the Dushyant Chautala party that is an ally of the BJP in the state. For instance, Rupinder Singh Jhand, who has been made an additional advocate general, is the son of state JJP chief Nishant Singh.
Among the controversial choices is Jagbir Malik, who has also been made the additional advocate general. He was one of the advocates who led the strike in the high court last year against the creation of the Haryana State Services Tribunal.
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