HC summons principal secy for flouting orders

LUCKNOW: The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has summoned the state government's principal secretary (law) KK Sharma on Thursday for flouting its orders.
A division bench of Justice DP Singh and Justice Satish Chandra said that in case the entire records pertaining to fresh appointment of district government counsel in the state as directed on September 16, 2011 are not produced before the court, there will be no option, except to proceed and draw contempt proceedings against Sharma.
"We express our deep anguish over the functioning of the law department of the state. Order of this court has not been complied with. Principal secretary (law) has also not filed an affidavit, as directed by the court earlier," observed the bench, saying that the conduct of the department is reprehensible.
The order came in course of hearing on bunch of writ petitions filed by removed district government counsel (DGC) and additional district government counsel (ADGC). The state government within last six months had removed almost all the DGCs and about 80% ADGCs in the state. About 350 writ petitions have come up before the Lucknow bench.
In case of challenge to the removal of DGC of Pratapgarh, Nand Lal Yadav, the court perused the available records and found that additional legal remembrancer Brijesh Kumar had recorded an opinion that the services of DGC may be terminated at any moment without assigning any reason under LR Manual. The principal secretary (law) Sharma forwarded the opinion to the chief minister's office on April 5, 2011. The joint secretary to the chief minister Rajendra Prasad made an endorsement on April 15, 2011 about approval of the said opinion. Thereafter, the law department made fresh panel from the districts for appointment of new DGC.
Similarly, in the matter of challenge to the removal of Gautam Budh Nagar's DGC Narendra Kumar Singh, the court recorded the statement of the then officiating DM of the district, Sheetal Verma that the then DM Deepak Agarwal had instructed her on telephone to prepare a panel of lawyers on April 20, 2011 by the same evening, as his meeting was scheduled with the chief minister in Lucknow. Later, within a week from the date of renewal, Singh was removed from the post of DGC on April 28, 2011.