Justice Goel’s son appointed Addl AG

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 12

Just a few hours after he retired as a Judge of the Supreme Court on June 6, Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel was appointed as the chairperson of the National Green Tribunal. Almost simultaneously, the Haryana Government passed an order appointing his son Nikhil Goel as Additional Advocate-General at a monthly remuneration of Rs1.4 lakh.

The order issued by the Haryana Administration of Justice Department says Nikhil has been appointed on contract for a year as “Additional Advocate-General, Haryana (Haryana Legal Cell, Haryana Bhawan, New Delhi) on the recommendation of the Advocate General, Haryana”.

The order, passed by Haryana Additional Chief Secretary Dr SS Prasad, adds Goel “shall be allowed to take up private cases, except those in which the interest of the state is involved”.

Confirming that Nikhil would be posted at his Delhi office, Haryana Advocate General (AG) Baldev Raj Mahajan described his appointment as “a routine affair”. “There are some important cases concerning the state in Delhi. We have appointed him for handling those cases,” Mahajan said.

The AG office in Delhi, as of now, has 52 law officers, including 31 Additional Advocates-General, six Assistant Advocates-General, three advocates-on-record, four Deputy Advocates-General, seven standing counsel and an assistant standing counsel.

Its team in Chandigarh with 149 law officers is much bigger. The Chandigarh office includes the Advocate-General, 35 Additional Advocates-General, a Senior Deputy Advocate-General, 55 Deputy Advocates-General, 54 Assistant Advocates-General and a district attorney.

The government, only about a fortnight back, had appointed 10 Deputy Advocates General and an equal number of Assistant Advocates-General in the AG’s office for defending the state in the Punjab and Haryana High Court.