High court issues notice to Rajasthan govt for no policy on hiring lawyers

Jaipur: The Rajasthan High Court has issued notice to the state government on the appointment of government lawyers by its various bodies without following any policy or system on their selection. The matter has come up during the hearing of a case involving the RSRTC. The single bench of Justice Sameer Jain issued the notice to the government taking the matter as a suo motu PIL and appointed lawyer Shashank Agarwal, as amicus curiae to pursue and assist the court in the matter. The court noted that “The different instrumentalities of the state like RSRTC, RIICO, JDA, Nagar Nigam, etc., are appointing panel lawyers. In addition to the state and Union of India, the said instrumentalities of the state have heavy litigation pending before the court wherein the said instrumentalities are either petitioner or respondent. As per the affidavit filed by the respondent, there are about 7,500 cases of RSRTC pending adjudication before the high court.” Mahendra Shandilya, president of Rajasthan high court bar association, Jaipur, in his intervention pointed out that there is a pick-and-choose policy adopted by the appointing authorities in this regard and there is a lot of political intervention on account of which effective representation, defence of the case on merit and speedy trial is adversely affected. TNN