Chief Secretary has raised concern over the urgency of engaging Jaising without seeking prior approval.
Senior lawyer Indira Jaising has written to the Delhi government over her pending bills of Rs 65 lakh due since 2016. Jaising was appointed as additional counsel by the AAP government to represent its cases against the Lieutenant Governor in the Delhi High Court. She has claimed 19 bills for six government departments. The bills are awaiting L-G Anil Baijal's approval.
A senior Delhi government official said that the bills were sent to the finance department and the Chief Secretary for the approval. The Chief Secretary has raised concern over the urgency of engaging Jaising without seeking prior approval.
"They have not yet given a nod as the bills were not approved by the L-G. The files are still pending," the official said.
Law Minister Kailash Gahlot had said that such counsels can be approved by the government in special cases. However, the bills have not yet been cleared.
Other senior lawyers who represented the government in the cases include Gopal Subramanium, Rajeev Dhavan and KK Venugopal. While Subramanium and Dhavan have refused to charge anything, Venugopal's bills are still pending.
"All possible obstacles were created to ensure that elected government does not hire any constitutional experts to defend its case. The bills of other senior lawyers are also pending. None of the affidavits related to the cases were signed by any of the bureaucrats," said Nagendar Sharma, Delhi government's spokesperson.
DNA's calls, text messages and e-mail sent to Jaising went unanswered. Of the 19 bills, eight are from the services department, seven from the revenue and one each from law, power, home and food supplies departments.
Even senior officers of one of the departments are struggling to find the details of Jaising's appearance in the cases. Sources in the government claimed that it will be difficult to clear the bills till they are cleared by the L-G.
As per an order by the department of law, the appointment of advocates on government panels to conduct civil cases in various courts in Delhi, for and on behalf of the Delhi government, is made by the L-G.
The Delhi High Court in 2016 had declared the Lieutenant Governor as the administrative head of the national capital against which the city government has moved the apex court.
According to the rules under the department of law and finance, if any new counsel is engaged in cases, a prior approval has to be taken from the L-G. "In cases involving substantial financial matters and important questions of law/policy matters having wider ramifications, the departments may engage advocates of established repute on fee/charges more than the rate prescribed by the Law and Judicial department with the prior concurrence of the finance department and the approval of L-G of Delhi," the finance department said in its circular dated September 23, 2011.
Earlier, Ram Jethmalani had sent a bill of Rs 2 crore to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal as he chose to quit as his lawyer in the defamation cases filed by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
CS: WHAT WAS THE URGENCY TO HIRE HER?
- The Chief Secretary has raised concern over the urgency of engaging Jaising without seeking prior approval
- Earlier, senior lawyer Ram Jethmalani had sent a bill of Rs 2 crore to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal
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