'Frivolous': Madhya Pradesh High Court Dismisses Plea Alleging Advocate General Charged 'Exorbitant Professional Fees'

The Madhya Pradesh High Court recently dismissed an application alleging that the state's Advocate General Prashant Singh charged and was paid "exorbitant professional fees" to appear in certain matters including a plea where the advocate general appeared for state Nurses Registration Council. This, the plea claimed, was despite government instructions that no separate fees was required to be paid to the law officers representing the 'Government Departments'.Terming the allegations "frivolous", the high court said that such allegations should not be scrutinized, adding that the allegation without proof of making payment of exorbitant professional fees to the Advocate General cannot be looked into by the high court. A division bench of Justice Sanjay Dwivedi and Justice Achal Kumar Paliwal in its order observed: “Mulling over the situation, we are firm in our opinion that such type of allegations are not required to be scrutinized nor would such allegations adversely affect the minds of this Court, which can cause any apprehensive derailment of the proceedings already initiated. Such allegations without any fulcrum or proof of making payment of exorbitant professional fees to the Advocate General of other law officer(s) cannot be looked into by this Court. Indeed, we do not want to enlarge the scope of the case and even otherwise, we do not find any illegality prima facie in the case of engaging lawyers by the autonomous body i.e. MPNRC and paying the professional fees as per their norms. Reluctant to indulge in such frivolous allegations, we hereby dismiss the application.”An application was filed alleging that the ex-chequer of the government had been subjected to huge expenditure as a result of the nursing college scam. Therefore, it was prayed that the entire expenditure should be recovered from the officers and public functionaries who are responsible for this entire scam.The counsel for the petitioner submitted that as per the letter issued by the state government's Department of Law & Legislative Affairs addressed to the Principal Secretary, Department of Health, a question was raised on the floor of Legislative Assembly alleging that the Advocate General charged exorbitant professional fees and the same was paid to him.It was further alleged that in the PIL relating to Nursing Colleges, the Advocate General and other counsels appearing on behalf of the Madhya Pradesh Nurses Registration Council (MPNRC) have been paid professional fees on behalf of the State-organisation despite the government instructions that no separate fees was required to be paid to the law officers representing the 'Government Departments'.The counsel for the petitioner further alleged that such exercise is an attempt by the State authorities to derail the proceedings of PIL and also to divert the focus of the Court because the PIL is at the verge of conclusion and the Court had directed the respondent authorities to produce the relevant record of proceeding related to grant of recognition to the Nursing Colleges.On the contrary, the State denied the allegations and said that all the news items have no 'fulcrum'. It was further submitted that the question raised at the floor of Legislative Assembly does not affect the proceeding of the case and all allegations made have no foundation and is merely an attempt to shoot in the dark.After hearing both the parties, the Court opined that submissions made on behalf of the petitioner appear irrelevant inasmuch as it is an expenditure made by the government during the course of litigation.“In number of petitions, the MPNRC is party, which is an autonomous body having nothing to do with the government departments and as such they are free to appoint any counsel or to pay the professional fees for the term, to which, the counsel and organisation have agreed to. It is for them to make their financial norms and the Court has nothing to do with the same.”, the Court observed.Thus, the Court found no illegality or any violation of government policies. “Neither any material has been placed before us as to what amount has actually been paid to the Advocate General or to other law officers of the State, nor any circular has been produced providing that a private organisation cannot engage any counsels who are not in the panel of State counsels and they have to pay the requisite fees to their counsels. Therefore all those letters, which have been referred are restraining the government departments from making payment of independent fees to the law officer(s) of the State but autonomous bodies, Corporations, legal bodies, government companies of the State having its autonomy and they can engage their counsel for their own funds and they are also free to engage the Advocate General and other law officers of the State and independent payment of professional fees, according to their norms, can be made to the engaged counsel, whether it is the Advocate General or any other law officers of the State.”,...

'Frivolous': Madhya Pradesh High Court Dismisses Plea Alleging Advocate General Charged 'Exorbitant Professional Fees'

Anukriti Mishra

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