Punjab finally hires 156 law officers, kin of judges on list

Saurabh Malik

Chandigarh, August 20

About five months after it came to power in Punjab, the AAP government today finally engaged the services of 156 law officers to represent the state before the Punjab and Haryana High Court and the Supreme Court.

Among others, the appointees include the relatives of retired and serving Punjab and Haryana High Court judges. But all of them have a proven track record. The appointments so far made are much less compared to the ones during the previous Congress regime. The number revolved around 220, including the law officers for Delhi.

Available information suggests that Haryana Lokayukta Justice Pritam Pal’s son Aman Pal, Justice HS Brar’s daughter Anu Pal and Justice Raj Shekhar Attri’s son Siddharth Attri have made it to the A-G office. Justice Pal’s another son, Ajay Pal, has been engaged as an advocate on record at Punjab legal cell in Delhi. All of them are former Judges of the Punjab and Haryana HC. Himachal’s former High Court Judge Justice Surjit Singh’s son Jasdev Singh Mehndiratta has also been appointed. He, otherwise, has been LLB gold medallist from Panjab University. Justice Lalit Batra’s daughter Swati Batra is also in the list. She, too, has strong credentials as an advocate.

Deepali Puri, wife of former CM Capt Amarinder Singh’s OSD Sandeep Sandhu, has been retained in the A-G office as Additional Advocate-General. She has a long experience of defending the state and was the Chandigarh MC’s counsel as well.

The government, in all, has engaged the services of one Senior Additional Advocate-General, 37 Additional Advocates-Generals, 13 Senior Deputy Advocates-General, 40 Deputy Advocates-Generals and 65 Assistant Advocates-General. In all, four lawyers have been engaged as advocate-on-record to represent the state government before the Supreme Court.

Four advocates appointed as Additional Advocate-General from the A-G discretionary quota include Delhi-based lawyer Prashant Manchanda (AAP leader Raghav Chadha’s counsel), Aman Pal, AAP spokesperson and joint secretary of party’s legal cell Ferry Sofat and Mehandiratta.

This is perhaps the first time in recallable past that the state has taken so much time for finalising the list. It came less than a month after senior advocate Vinod Ghai took over as the A-G. The previous list being prepared during the tenure of his predecessor Anmol Rattan Singh Sidhu could not be finalised.

Sidhu was appointed on March 20, but he stepped down citing personal reasons. But his resignation was attributed to his differences with the AAP leadership over the list of law officers and “interference in the working” of the A-G office.