Madras High Court: In a writ appeal filed by the State against the order dated 15-11-2021 by the Single Judge, wherein the Court directed the State to sanction and pay the eligible fee payable to the respondent considering the claim made by him, within 2 weeks, the division bench of R. Suresh Kumar* and K. Kumaresh Babu, JJ. has directed the State Government to nominate a Nodal Officer in the rank of Secretary or Additional Secretary of the State Government for dealing with the requests of various departments for nomination of Advocate General and Additional Advocate General (AAG) for the appearance in important cases.
Background:
The respondent is a practising Advocate since 1972 and in 2006, he was appointed as AAG-II of the State of Tamil Nadu and he was subsequently designated as a Senior Advocate and later in 2009, he was appointed as AAG – I. In that capacity, he appeared in several cases for the State before this Court as well as before the Madurai Bench of this Court between 2006 – 2011. He had claimed his eligible fee per day/per case basis and thereafter, he resigned the post of Additional Advocate General – I. Therefore, from the year 2006 to 13-05-2011, the respondent submitted various bills for his appearance as AAG- II and I, in respect of various departments and according to him, the outstanding amount is Rs. 1,95,01,622/-.
The Court took note of the letter written by Advocate General to the Chief Secretary to Government of Tamil Nadu, wherein the Advocate General has traced what had happened in these kinds of cases in past and on some occasions, observations had been made by this Court on the attitude of the Government in not paying the legal fee to the law officers. Therefore, to avoid this kind of unpleasantness where the formal law officers of the State are driven to come before this Court to make a lis for their professional fees, the Advocate General has suggested certain measures.
After taking note of the said letter, the Court gave the following directions to the State to take steps to issue guidelines in respect of consideration and clearance of the professional fee bills for the law officers of the State at various levels:
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The four suggestions made by the Advocate General vide his letter shall be considered and implemented by the State Government. Thus, a Nodal officer in the rank of Secretary or Additional Secretary of the State Government shall be specifically nominated for dealing with the requests of the various departments for nomination of Advocate General and AAG for the appearance in important cases by or against the State Government and its Departments.
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The Nodal Officer shall also consider and look after the professional fee claim made from time to time by various law officers starting from Advocate General, AAG, State Government Pleader, Special Government Pleader, Additional Government Pleader, Government Advocate, etc.
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Professional bills which are claimed by such law officers shall be examined and disposed either by way of making the payment or if any ineligible amount is claimed, as per the conditions of appointment of law officers. The claim should be disposed of within 30 days from the date of such claim is made by the law officer concerned.
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To assist the Nodal Officer, minimum secretarial staff shall be provided by the State Government. The Nodal Officer shall be in constant touch with all other departments of the State Government regarding their requirement of appointment of higher law officers on specific cases as well as for the clarifications, etc., to be ascertained for the purpose of verification and clearing of the fee bills.
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Once the Nodal Officer, after thorough consideration and verification, clears the professional fee bill of the law officers, the payment shall be made within 30 days thereafter and it should ensured by the Nodal Officer.
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In order to comply the aforesaid directions, necessary Government Order shall be issued by the State Government within a period of 30 days from the date of receipt of a copy of this order and a compliance report to that effect shall be filed before this Court on 28-08-2023.
The matter will next be taken up on 28-08-2023 for reporting compliance of the order.
[State of Tamil Nadu v. S. Ramasamy, 2023 SCC OnLine Mad 4742, decided on 18-07-2023]
*Judgment Authored by: Justice R. Suresh Kumar
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For Appellants: Advocate General R. Shunmugasundaram, Special Government Pleader;
K.V. Sajeev Kumar;
For Respondent: Advocate G. Rajkumar.
