Senior advocate DS Patwalia is Punjab's new Advocate-General

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 19

After much ado and rigmaroles, the Punjab Government on Friday went back to its initial decision to appoint senior advocate Deepinder Singh Patwalia as the state Advocate-General. The post had fallen vacant after senior advocate APS Deol stepped down following attack by a member of the government that appointed him.

Patwalia, with his appointment, has kept up the family tradition of standing up for justice. He is the son of retired Supreme Court Judge, Justice Kuldip Singh, and brother of Punjab and Haryana High Court’s former Judge, Justice Paramjit Singh Patwalia. Designated senior advocate more than seven years back, he is the youngest Advocate-General for the state of Punjab in the recallable past.

Patwalia has been practising on the constitutional side and has largely been dealing with service matters and even criminal cases. He had appeared before the Punjab and Haryana High Court on behalf of IPS officer Mohammad Mustafa in a case revolving around the appointment of another IPS officer Dinkar Gupta as the state Director-General of Police.

Patwalia, who took charge as the Advocate-General this evening, was the first to be offered the post by Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi in September. It was after senior advocate Atul Nanda resigned following the change of guard in the Congress and Channi replacing Capt Amarinder Singh as the Chief Minister

Available information suggests the government in a last-minute turnaround reportedly cleared the name of senior advocate Anmol Rattan Singh Sidhu for the post. But it eventually appointed APS Deol, who at one point of time was the counsel for former top-cop Sumedh Singh Saini and IG Paramraj Singh Umaranangal — both accused in the Behbal Kalan police firing case.

Deol’s appointment courted controversy as the incidents of sacrilege and subsequent police firing in Faridkot district’s Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan in 2015 have always been considered politically sensitive. Facing attack, Deol resigned from the post last month before being engaged in a war of words with Sidhu. Deol publically accused Sidhu of disseminating misinformation to achieve political benefit over his political colleagues. Deol also blamed him for obstructing the functioning of the state government and the AG office. Sidhu, in turn, used a long thread of 12 tweets to slam Deol.