The Punjab government has clarified that the advocates empaneled to conduct/defend its cases in the Supreme Court of India and other courts outside Chandigarh were not being hired on a monthly retainer, as erroneously suggested by media reports.The counsel selected for the panel would not be paid a monthly retainer fee, as certain media reports seemed to indicate, an official spokesperson said on Tuesday. The advocates would be paid fees on per appearance per petition basis, said the spokesperson, adding that the amount thus paid had been hiked by the Captain Amarinder Singh government from the earlier Rs. 2.8 lakh to Rs. 3.3 lakh in the `A-1’ category of counsel, which included the top run lawyers taken on the panel.Similar hikes had also been made in other categories of lawyers, as well as in the fees for Conference (including clerkage) and settling/drafting of petition/counter/rejoinder/opinion etc., said the spokesperson.
The panel of advocates undergoes revision from time to time and the government had decided to take the services of some of the topmost lawyers in the country, including Abhishek Singhvi, Fali S Nariman, Dushyant Dave, Ram Jethmalani, KK Venugopal, Indira Jaising, Gopal Subramaniam, among others, to protect its interest in the apex and other courts on critical issues such as the SYL, said the spokesperson. The empaneled counsel from various categories would be engaged by the state government for a given case with prior approval of the Advocate General, Punjab, and ex-post-facto approval of the Home Department obtained immediately, the spokesperson explained. The Advocate General will appear or arrange for appearance for the Punjab government in all cases concerning the state of Punjab in the Supreme Court as well as in the High Court and all other courts and fora, and send such proposals immediately to the Department of Home Affairs and Justice for ex-post-factor approval. According to the notification issued in this regard, the Advocates-on-Record and the Legal Cell at New Delhi will work and function under the supervision of the Advocate General of the state.