Excise department’s special counsel fees burn a hole in Delhi revenue

NEW DELHI: Before Enforcement Directorate smelt a rat in the excise policy, the Delhi government’s Excise department spent nothing on lawyers in 2020-21, but subsequent two years saw the department's outgo on ‘special counsel fees’ zoom to Rs 16 crore in 2021-22 and Rs 5.23 crore in first eight months of 2022-23.
According to documents accessed by TOI, different Delhi government departments, including Urban Development, Women and Child development, Public Works, Excise, Environment, Health, Prosecution, Transport, Revenue and Power, cumulatively spent Rs 20.7 crore in the financial year 2021-22 towards fees of special counsel.
Excise department alone spent Rs 16.09 crore. Of this, senior advocates A M Singhvi and Rahul Mehra were paid Rs 13.97 crore and Rs 1,77 crore, which together was Rs 15.74 crore or 97% of total fees paid to special counsel in that financial year by the department.
Till November 30 last year (financial year 2022-23), the Delhi government departments cumulatively spent Rs 7.31 crore towards fees of special counsel, of which the Excise department had a lion’s share by accounting for Rs 5.23 crore, or 71.5% of the total spending by the Delhi government on this head.
Of this, Singhvi and Mehra were paid Rs 4.12 crore and Rs 68.2 lakhs respectively. Together they accounted for 91% of the money spent by the Excise department on fees of special counsel in the financial year 2022-23.
The restriction imposed by Lieutenant Governor on paying hefty fees to special counsel was reflected in Delhi’s deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia in a recent affidavit before the Supreme Court, in the matter relating to vexatious dispute between Centre and Delhi government over ‘services’. He had said that “The principal secretary (law), without any basis, has opined that appointment of counsels requires the opinion of the Lieutenant Governor”.
“Thus, as per the principal secretary (law), individual bills of senior counsel are required to be vetted/approved at the level of LG,” Sisodia had said and argued that it was an attempt by the Centre through LG to deny freedom to the Delhi government to engage senior counsel for “effective legal representation”.
The deputy CM had also said, “Hurdles are being created by the principal secretary (law) in the engagement of and disbursal of fees to senior counsel to represent various arms of the elected government before various courts and tribunals.”
As per the documents accessed by the TOI, objections were raised by the principal secretary (law) when the lawyers’ bills started running into crores of rupees and the officers of the department brought it to the notice of the LG.