Chandigarh, April 16
Taking note of The Tribune news report headlined “SYL: Huge payments to lawyers under scanner” published in today’s edition, Punjab advocate-general (AG) Hardev Singh Mattewal today wrote to the chief secretary, asking for a probe at the highest level.

In his letter to chief secretary Ramesh Inder Singh, Mattewal, while referring to the news report and its contents, has observed that the matter was a “serious issue which requires to be looked into by the government at the highest level”.

In the exclusive report, The Tribune had highlighted how huge fees, running into several lakhs, was paid out to Delhi-based lawyers connected with the Satluj-Yamuna-Link (SYL) Canal cases in the name of conferences of which officers of the Irrigation Department were totally ignorant. Irrigation Department is the nodal department for all matters connected with the SYL Canal and the river water disputes.

The report had also talked of exorbitant fees having been paid to lawyers at a rate that was not even got cleared from the concerned government department.

Even the state Finance Department (FD) had refused to sanction the payment rates approved by the Irrigation Department for making payment to lawyers appearing for the state.

When the FD sought details of case-wise fee paid to the advocates, the officials of the Irrigation Department had failed to do so. The FD had also come across instances of conference fees charged by advocates being much 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.