'Arbitrary': Allahabad HC Overturns Termination Of Standing Counsel's Contract Prompted By DM's 'Annoyance' With Court Summons

The Allahabad High Court recently set aside the Uttar Pradesh Government's order to terminate a Standing Counsel's empanelment/contract, terming it as 'illegal' and 'arbitrary'. The termination followed the petitioner's inability to connect to the Hardoi District Magistrate, whose phone was switched off during court hours, due to which theDM was summoned by the Court in October last year. Granting relief to the petitioner, a bench of Justice Alok Mathur opined that merely because the DM was summoned by the Court, could not be a ground in itself to cause such annoyance to proceed to cancel the empanelment of a Standing counsel. For context, in October last year, the Allahabad High Court summoned the District Magistrate (DM) of Hardoi, Mangla Prasad Singh, to explain the circumstances of his mobile phone being found switched off, due to which he could not be contacted in connection with a hearing concerning explosive license renewal. In fact, in its order, the HC had also expressed its displeasure over the DM keeping his mobile phone switched off as it observed thus: “It is indeed a sad state of affairs that the head of the District is functioning with his mobile phone being switched off. It is not understood under what circumstances the said mobile phone has been switched off with the result that in case of any emergency as to how the District Magistrate, heading the District, is to be contacted.” Pursuant to this, since the DM had to appear before the HC, he made a complaint to the state government alleging that no call had been made to him by the petitioner and that he had actually misinformed the High Court, which led to the embarrassment of the DM. Taking cognizance of this very letter of the DM, the State Government terminated the contract of the petitioner in November last year, without affording any opportunity of hearing to him. Challenging the same, he moved the HC. It was the primary argument of the petitioner that the State Government was not justified in passing the order impugned, merely placing reliance upon a report forwarded by the District Magistrate. On the other hand, opposing his plea, the Standing counsel argued that the aspect about the engagement or disengagement of a Law Officer is within the realm of discretion of the State Government and that the HC's scope of inference in the same would be extremely limited. It was also contended that the DM's complaint contained cogent reasons suggesting the petitioner had misrepresented facts to the Court, as his call did not appear in the call records list submitted by the DM for that particular day. The Court, however, discarded this argument as it accepted the petitioner's submission that call details issued by the operator do not include the calls which are made when the phone is switched off. This argument was not refuted by the Standing counsel. Furthermore, the Court also found justification in the conduct of the petitioner, who had merely sought to convey the sentiments and order of the Court to the District Magistrate, Hardoi. “We also do not loose sight of fact that apart from being a Standing counsel for State of U.P. they are also the officers of the Court and are under a mandate to own obligations and duties towards this Court also. Merely because at that point of time the phone was not picked up by the District Magistrate for whatsoever reasons or that his phone was switched off and this Court was dutifully informed cannot be a ground for annoyance of the District Magistrate, Hardoi and in any view of the matter there was no reason forthcoming for his not discharging his duties for a period of 8 months by not renewing the license which was the subject matter of the said writ petition,” the Court remarked The Court also added that the termination of the petitioner's contract due to his inability to connect through the telephone by vague reasons rendered the enquiry report 'malafide'. The single judge also found faults with the fact that no opportunity of hearing had been given to the petitioner despite issuance of a show cause notice, where neither any action was proposed or recorded nor any incident stated therein. In view of this, allowing the writ plea, the Court set aside the order impugned passed by the Special Secretary and Additional Legal Remembrancer (Nyay Vibhag), UP Govt. Case title - Krishna Kumar Singh vs. State Of U.P. Thru. Prin. Secy. Law And Legal Remembrance Lko. And 2 Others 2025 LiveLaw (AB) 155 Case citation: 2025 LiveLaw (AB) 155 Click Here To Read/Download Order

'Arbitrary': Allahabad HC Overturns Termination Of Standing Counsel's Contract Prompted By DM's 'Annoyance' With Court Summons

Sparsh Upadhyay

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