Had appeared for Punjab in Kotkapura SIT probe case: After ‘costly’ tag, Delhi advocate loses `3.1 cr in legal fee

The Punjab government will pay Rs 2.10 crore to a Delhi-based lawyer for appearing on its behalf in two cases in Punjab and Haryana High court, one involving the Bargari sacrilege and another in which the court had recently quashed the investigations by the SIT led by Punjab Police IG Kunwar Vijay Pratap.

Four days before the HC ordered quashing of investigations by SIT into Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura firing incidents, the Punjab government had ordered slashing of Advocate Harin P Raval’s fee by 1.5 times, after Punjab’s Home Secretary Anurag Agarwal raised the objections over “high” amount charged by him. After the revised orders by the Finance Department, the lawyer will now get Rs 2.10 crore for his appearance in 21 hearings. The government would have owed him Rs 5.2 crore had they gone ahead with Rs 25 lakh peer hearing fee that the legal department had promised him.

Raval had appeared in 21 hearings representing the state of Punjab, through video-conferencing, in two cases including Bargari sacrilege (Sukhjinder Singh alias Sunny vs state of Punjab) and another (Gurdeep Singh vs State of Punjab), in which the HC finally quashed the investigation by SIT led by IG Kunwar Vijay Pratap.

The lawyer had demanded a fee of Rs 25 lakh per hearing. After Agarwal’s raising the issue of very high fee, the Chief Minister directed the government to pay him at the rate of Rs 10 lakh per hearing. The orders by the Finance Department of the state government were issued on April 6, four days before the HC orders. Earlier in February also, the state government had written to the lawyer that he should reduce his fee to Rs 17.50 lakh for every hearing. The meeting was chaired by Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan and attended by Advocate General Atul Nanda.

But even after that the Home Department objected to the state government paying so much fee to the lawyer concerned. Home Secretary on April 1 last mentioned that the government has fixed rates of the counsel who appear for Government of Punjab in Supreme Court as well as courts in Chandigarh.

In case of former DGP Sumedh Singh Saini vs Government of Punjab, Gopal Subramanyam has been paid a conference fee of Rs 7 lakh and Rs 15 lakh as appearance fee. Similarly in case of former DGP Mohd Mustafa vs Union India, lawyer Mukul Rohatgi was paid Rs 11 lakh per appearance, which includes one video conference also. The department said that Sumbramanyam and Rohatgi are both senior to Raval and hence he should be asked to lower his fee.

On April 1, Agarwal put up a file to Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh calling the bills put up by Raval as “very high.” He also wrote that he was called by AG Nanda to his residence, and conveyed displeasure at the pending bills of Raval. He wrote that he had requested the AG that he should negotiate with Raval but he wanted the government to do so. The CM okayed the proposal a day later and the Finance Department ordered that he should be paid at Rs 10 lakh per appearance.

CM had asked AG to appear personally 

The communication by the Department of Home to the CM mentions about two observations made by Amarinder. On February 4, the CM had written that “all such cases where Harin P Raval is appearing in the Punjab and Haryana High Court at Chandigarh should be taken over by the office of Advocate General,Punjab and in case matter is sensitive, the AG should personally appear”.
He had also said that as Rs 17.50 lakh per appearance through VC is very high the Advocate General be asked to further negotiate this rate with Raval.

The communication also mentions another observation by the CM on March 5, that stated that, “CM, after consideration in the matter, has ordered that a matter of principle, we should not engage advocates from Delhi to appear at Chandigarh as we have adequate number of law officers in the AG office. However, in case an advocate from Delhi is required to be hired to defend a case in Chandigarh, the AG should give reasons as to why the case cannot be defended by this office”.