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Under fire for appearing against the government in the High Court in several sensitive cases, senior advocate M K Damodaran on Tuesday decided against taking up the post of legal adviser to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
The government had issued the appointment order on June 9.
In recent weeks, Damodaran, who was Advocate General during the LDF regime between 1996 and 2001, had embarrassed the government by appearing as defence counsel for controversial lottery king Santiago Martin and some other controversial petitioners. He also appeared for Congress leader R Chandrasekharan, who wanted the Vigilance department to quash the FIR registered against him in a scam.
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The opposition had pointed out that the senior lawyer cannot appear for cases which went against the state’s interest. Even the CPI, the second largest partner in the LDF, was opposed to Damodaran appearing for private parties in cases where the government has a stake.
BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan had moved a petition in High Court against Damodaran’s appointment, arguing that the government already had the Advocate General to perform the same job.
When the court considered the petition Tuesday, Damodaran informed the Bench that he had decided not to accept the post, which had the rank of a principal secretary. Later, the court posted the matter for July 21.
In a statement, Rajasekharan said the government was forced to retract from its decision after it realised that the appointment was ‘unconstitutional’.
With PTI inputs
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