‘Honour’ to have law officers who quit back in AG’s office,‘daily wager’ Aggarwal says

Aggarwal says there is nothing wrong in the functioning of the advocate general’s office and he doesn’t see “any difficulty” in running it and adds “it will be an honour” for him to have those five law officers who resigned from the advocate general’s office recently.

Rumours have been doing the round that the resignation of the five law officers is one of the major reasons for Baldev Singh’s resignation from the advocate general’s post.

“It is a matter of honour to have them (the five law officers) in the office. They may have resigned due to professional compulsions. Each of the five law officers are very capable lawyers. I will try to restore the honour,subject to their consent,” Aggarwal says.

Chetan Mittal,Salil Sagar,Madhu Dayal,G S Attariwala and Puneet Gupta had resigned recently——some quit because they felt they were “sidelined”,while others resigned because they were “stifled” with the AG’s office atmosphere.

But Aggarwal says Baldev Singh’s resignation may have been due to a “communication gap”.

Baldev Singh resigned on Sunday alleging that he was pressurised to hand over charge as senior standing counsel of Punjab State Electricity Board to Additional Advocate General Rupinder Singh Khosla.

“I think,the reason may have been,at the most,due to a communication gap. I have high regards for Baldev Singh,” he says.

Making it clear he doesn’t have an issue in handing over charge as PSEB’s senior standing counsel to any other lawyer,Aggarwal says: “I will be the first person not to hold one. If a board feels some lawyer should be authorised as a senior standing counsel,it is for the board to decide. I see no reason as to why a lawyer should have any difficulty.

“An advocate general has nothing to do with politics. He is the face of the government before the high court. It is his duty to give legal opinions to the state functionaries. This is a brief for me as a lawyer,a brief given by the state.”

Aggarwal has appeared for politicians from all parties—from Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi to former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala and from former Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh to Punjab Speaker Nirmal Singh Kahlon.

Aggarwal,who was was directly recruited as a sessions judge in 1986 by the Haryana government while he was practising in the Punjab and Haryana High Court,resigned after a short stint of seven months as a judge in Gurgaon and Rohtak and returned to his practice,which he joined in 1975.

Besides Aggarwal,some of the lawyers who have remained advocate generals for both Punjab and Haryana are senior lawyers Hira Lal Sibal,M L Sarin and Harbhagwan Singh.

Meanwhile,Rupinder Singh Khosla was designated as senior additional advocate general by the Punjab government on Tuesday. A notification to this effect was issued by the state government.