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Tribune Exclusive
SYL cases: Huge payments to lawyers under scanner
Maneesh Chhibber
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 15
Even as successive governments in Punjab have maintained that no expense will be spared to secure a legal victory in the Satluj-Yamuna-Link (SYL) canal cases, it now seems that the state may have been taken for a costly ride in the name of safeguarding its interests vis-a-vis the ‘jinxed’ canal.

In what could be just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, it now transpires that a huge fee, running into several lakhs, was paid out to Delhi-based lawyers in the name of conferences about which, for some reason, officers of the Irrigation Department were ignorant.

Apart from the question that whether most of such conferences actually took place or not, the exorbitant fees paid to Delhi lawyers, much higher than what had been fixed by the government, are also under scanner.

Most of these conferences happened during the Amarinder regime. The records, which were also available with The Tribune, show that the state government sanctioned at least Rs 3.10 crore between December 2003 and March 2005 for payment as legal fees.

On December 16, 2003, the then government granted additional funds of Rs 50 lakh for making payment to the approved advocates, engaged for filing of review petition in SYL case. A similar sum was granted on February 24, 2004. Thereafter, on July 15, 2004, the government accorded sanction to Rs 1 crore more for the same purpose. On October 1, 2004, yet another sanction, this time of Rs 20 lakh was issued.

On October 8, 2004, the Amarinder government sanctioned of Rs 40 lakh for payment of fees to lawyers conducting the suit number 2 of 1996 filed by the State of Himachal Pradesh versus Union of India in the water matter. Thereafter, Rs 30 lakh was sanctioned on January 24, 2005, while Rs 20 lakh was sanctioned on March 11, 2005 for payment to lawyers.

Apart from the review petition, which was dismissed by the Supreme Court on August 25, 2004, the Punjab Government had engaged lawyers for putting forth its views on the constitutionality of the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004, which stands referred to a Constitutional Bench of the apex court by the President.

The other cases related to the SYL canal, where services of Supreme Court advocates are being used, include the Eradi Tribunal, the special leave petition against a judgment of the Rajasthan High Court ordering transfer of the Harike, Ropar and Ferozepore headworks to the Bhakra-Beas Management Board, Punjab’s complaint under Section 3 of the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956, etc.

The latest controversy, over the irregular manner in which one of the SYL cases was handled, cropped up in November last after the Finance Department (FD) refused to sanction payment rates approved by the Irrigation Department for making payment to lawyers appearing for the state in the SYL matters before the Supreme Court.

The FD sought details of case-wise fee paid to the advocates. The FD also clearly told the Irrigation Department that unless the details were provided, no funds would be released for the purpose in future.

Later, after perusing the details submitted by the office of Punjab advocate-general, the FD found that conference fee charged by some advocates was more than the appearance fee.

It was also found that on most occasions, the Irrigation Department was ignorant about the conferences, held to chalk out a strategy for contesting the case. Not only this, despite repeated requests, the Irrigation Department did not provide the case-wise details of payments made to lawyers.

Thereafter, the Home Department said that presence of representatives of the Irrigation Department was to be a must at all future conferences. It also said that the Irrigation Department “must satisfy itself that the payments being made/to be made to the advocates” were genuine.

The FD raised these concerns and a high-level meeting was also convened by previous chief secretary K.R. Lakhanpal, to discuss this issue.

Incidentally, even the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) for 2005-06 referred to this serious lapse. After scrutiny of record, the auditors found that conferences had been held at brief intervals without any intimation to the department concerned.

In just 2005-06, a whopping amount of Rs 41.36 lakh was paid as conference fee by the government. The auditors found that no officer of the Punjab government had cleared these payments. Officers of the Irrigation Department also told the auditors that even they did not have any knowledge of the agenda or purpose of most of these conferences.

An example of how things worked: for just one hearing in the Supreme Court held on January 12, 2004, as many as seven senior advocates had been paid huge sums for appearing for Punjab! Almost all these lawyers also received money for conferences to discuss the case either one day before the hearing or on the same day.

Despite repeated attempts, no official of the state government was ready to discuss the matter on record. However, a former senior officer of the Irrigation Department told The Tribune that questions over huge, unexplained payments to lawyers had been raised at various meetings but no follow-up action had ever been taken.