Law Ministry is like Alice’s Wonderland — Soli Sorabjee

In his letter dated February 10, the Attorney General referred to the case of an advocate, B P Aggarwal, who was removed from the panel of Central Government Advocates for “negligent performance”. But shortly afterwards, the very same advocate was briefed in important and sensitive anti-dumping cases before the CEGAT (Customs, Excise and Gold (Control) Appellate Tribunal.)

According to the Commerce Ministry, Aggarwal did not even appear before the CEGAT tribunal for two or three days and sent his junior, besides which his performance before the CEGAT was highly unsatisfactory.

Earlier, the same lawyer had been removed from the panel of Central Government Advocates in the Supreme Court because it was discoveredthat a dozen government appeals and SLPs in Customs and Excise matters were dismissed as barred by limitation because the advocate had delayed drafting them. The Government lost lakhs in revenue as a consequence.

Not only was Aggarwal allowed to represent the Government before the CEGAT, but even more strangely, his name was included as a senior Government counsel in the Delhi High Court. The Attorney General has asked the ministry to inquire how this came about.

In a similar case, Rakesh Tikoo was removed from the panel as Central Government counsel in early 1999 during P R Kumaramangalam’s tenure as Law Minister. But just a few months later after Ram Jethmalani became Law Minister, Tikoo, a friend of the Additional Solicitor General (Delhi) S B Jaisinghani, was re-appointed.

A director in the Commerce Ministry Kirthy Kumar claimed that Tikoo had been highly recommended by Solicitor General Harish Salve. But when the matter was brought to Salve’s notice, he denied making any such recommendation andhas written an angry letter demanding an inquiry as to how his name was misused on an official file noting. An inquiry has been ordered and Kirthy Kumar meanwhile had been divested of his charge of allocating briefs to government counsel.

Another case which has evoked concern is the mysterious and abrupt removal of government standing counsel Gita Luthra last week while she was in the midst of briefing the Attorney General and the Solicitor General in the IGNCA matter. Both Sorabjee and Salve were clearly not party to her removal, in fact they were as taken aback by the turn of events as the counsel herself.