In a first, Manish Patel son of law minister Jogaram Patel, has been appointed as Additional Advocate General (AAG) to represent government of Rajasthan in courts. He is among six AAGs appointed by the Rajasthan government. Advocate Manish Patel has been given appointment in principal bench of Rajasthan High Court Jodhpur.
The principal secretary law Gyan Prakash Gupta has issued the appointment orders.
At a time when BJP is opposing dynast politics and pushing for a transparent governance, the appointment of Manish Patel in his father's department is a case of political discussion. There are thousands of lawyers practising in High Court in Rajasthan. But the state government could not find a suitable lawyer who can represent Rajasthan government in courts.
“It must have been difficult for the law department to find a good lawyer. Otherwise it would not have appointed Manish Patel, who is son of law minister Jogaram Patel. The BJP government is a corruption free transparent government. It would not have appointed him just to give a chance to opposition for raising finger,” said a law department official.
He said that the appointment of Manish Patel must not have been just because of hefty salaries AAGs get. They get a fixed salary of ₹1.25 lakh per annum. Apart from that, they also get appearance fee of ₹5000 per day per case besides reimbursement of expenses of their staff in the High Court chamber.
The Bhajanlal Sharma government, on Tuesday, has appointed six Additional Advocate General. Recently, senior Advocate Rajendra Prasad was appointed as the Advocate General.
The government has also appointed Advocate Shivmangal Sharma as Additional Advocate General in Supreme Court. Similarly, Advocate Nidhi Jaswal has been appointed as Advicate on Record and Saurabh Rajpal, Divyank Panwar, Kshitiz Mittal and Anisha Rastogi have been appointed as panel lawyer for Supreme Court.
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