Cutting its legal team to almost half of its previous strength of 215, Punjab Government on Friday announced the names of 121 law officers, out of proposed 154. With this, the government claimed to have selected “more experienced professionals to effectively clear the mounting pendency of the State-related legal cases in various courts”.
Acting on the recommendation of the state Advocate General Atul Nanda, the state government has decided to overhaul the legal team in pursuance of the Supreme Court directives in the case of State of Punjab and others vs Brijeshwar Singh Chahal and another — 2016 6 SCC 1, and as per the provisions of Section 3(2) and 3(3) of The Punjab law Officers (Engagement) Act, 2017.
Government spokesperson revealed that of the 121 new law officers appointed, 25 are Additional AGs, 49 Assistant AGs, 30 Deputy AGs and 17 Senior Deputy AGs.
The move would make the state’s legal department more transparent, efficacious and cost-effective, according to the official spokesperson, who said that AG Atul Nandu had made a detailed and judicious work assessment of the existing and potential work load to arrive at a prudent figure.
“Not only will the streamlined structure help boost efficiencies and clear the backlog of cases related to the state in various courts, it will also bring in the much-needed professionalism in the system,” said Nanda.
Under the new system, specific law officers in various positions will be tasked with specific duties across different courts, thus enhancing productivity, currently seriously lacking in the system, which has several inexperienced lawyers, many of whom have never attended the courts.
The overhauling of the team is in strict adherence to the various parameters laid down by the Apex Court’s directives to the states of Punjab and Haryana which has asked the states to undertake a realistic assessment of their need in each category in which State Counsel are proposed to be appointed.
Based on his calculations, Nanda had concluded that while 123 lawyers ought to be engaged in Chandigarh, another 31 should be taken on board to tackle the pending cases in Delhi, across various categories.
“These included senior Additional Advocate General (three in Chandigarh), Additional Advocates General (16 in Delhi, 23 in Chandigarh), senior Deputy Advocate General (22 in Chandigarh), Assistant Advocate General (six in Delhi, 43 in Chandigarh) and Advocate on record (five in Delhi),” said the spokesperson.
Spokesperson said that Chandigarh would cover the pendency of cases in the High Court of Punjab and Haryana, as well as Tribunals other than the District Courts, while New Delhi encompasses the Supreme Court, the Delhi High Court and several national or central tribunals.
AG Nanda, elaborating on the total requirement, had pointed out that with an average of 25,000-26,000 fresh cases filed every year (between 2012 and 2015), and the figure escalating by almost 27 percent in 2016 to 33,000 cases, there was drastic need to scale up the number of law officers as this level of increase was expected to be maintained, if not further enhanced, over the next five years.
In addition, there are cases which are decided every year, for which the figure was expected to go up 25 percent (to touch about 20,000) in the first quarter of 2017 alone.
Nanda also found a massive 114 percent increase in the first quarter of 2017 in the pending cases which were to be argued for or just prior to the stage of admission, and required legal intervention. Cumulatively, this figure has gone up by 428 percent since 2012 – from 7,000 to 30,000 cases.
Taken collectively, this implies a whopping 160 percent increase in workload over the period 2012-17, which would translate into an addition, perhaps, of seven courts, taking the number of courts to be attended to about 45.
AG further assessed that taking a thumb rule of three law officers per court itself yields a number of 135 law officers on the current pendency. And factoring in an escalation rate of 160 percent, this would require an unwieldy figure of 432 law officers.
“However, in line with the SC directive, the AG decided to go in for a more realistic assessment of the team strength. Thus, after examining the court or bench wise requirement for law officers to provide for better and more optimum utilisation of resources and lawyers, the AG had proposed engagement of law officers across the two regions of New Delhi and Chandigarh as per the workload across criminal and civil matters,” said the spokesperson.
Nanda, thus, recommended to the state government engagement of 70 law officers on the civil side and 50 on the criminal side, with two-three supervisory officers, in Chandigarh.