Appointment of outsiders as senior advocates
SHILLONG: The Supreme Court has issued notices to Registrar General of the High Court of Meghalaya on two petitions, one on rejection of RTI application and another on appointment of advocates from outside the state as seniors, filed by the Shillong High Court Bar Association.
First the member of Bar Association, B. Bhattacharjee filed a Special Leave Petition before the apex court after the High Court refused to give information under RTI Act regarding the appointment of Aman Sinha as senior advocate which led to the apex court issuing notice to the Registrar of High Court.
Later, the Bar Association filed another petition against the appointment of three advocates from outside the state Sinha, P.K. Rai and A.K. Singh as seniors following which Supreme Court issued notice to the registry of High Court.
Sources said that the petition filed by Bar Association pointed out that the three senior lawyers never practiced in Meghalaya and hence the ‘senior’ designation given to them by the High Court should be under judicial scrutiny.
The Supreme Court has clubbed both the petitions which will be taken up in the next date of hearing.
Earlier, though Bhattacharjee filed an application under RTI before the High Court, he was denied information which compelled him to make an appeal before the Appellate Authority.
The Appellate Authority too denied information to the applicant, who subsequently approached state Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) for redress.
After the C IC issued show cause notice to the High Court, a lawyer was appointed to follow up the case which was objected by the CIC saying that the concerned party should appear before the Commission and not a nominee, sources said. Later, the Registrar of High Court filed a writ petition making Bhattacharjee as a party.
Following this, the single bench of the High Court quashed the appeal of Bhattacharjee before CIC.
Though Bhattacharjee appealed before the Division Bench of the High Court, the latter upheld the order of the single bench. This has compelled Bhattacharjee to seek the intervention of the apex court.