Attorney General KK Venugopal has advised all Ministries and Central Government departments to route all requests for legal opinion through the law Ministry, a senior Government functionary said. This is a departure from the practice prevailing at present when public sector departments and Ministries directly approached the office of A-G for legal opinions.
According to Government sources, a letter was recently written by Venugopal’s office to Secretaries of Ministries who approached him directly for legal opinion on various issues. Venugopal’s office further stated that a brief summary of the case should be mentioned while seeking opinion. By doing so, Venugopal has stuck by the rule-book. Rule 8(e) of the law Officers (Condition of Services) Rules, 1972 provides that unless a reference is received from the law Ministry, no advice will be given to any Ministry or department.
Government functionaries recalled that during the tenure of former A-G Mukul Rohatgi, departments were allowed direct access to office of A-G for legal opinions. Rohatgi is believed to have said that routing requests through the law Ministry made the process cumbersome and delayed. In fact, Rohatgi wrote to Union law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad earlier this year to say that departments and even Ministers had declined to route their requests for his legal opinion through the law Ministry due to urgency of the matter.
Rohatgi was of the view that Rule 8(e) was contrary to Article 76 of the Constitution which states that it shall be the duty of the AG to give advice to the Government of India upon such legal matters, and to perform such other duties of a legal character, as may from time to time be referred or assigned to him by the President.