Rajasthan High Court Dismisses PIL Challenging Appointments Of AAGs, Law Officers; Says Executive's Domain To Decided Their Suitability

“The suitability of a lawyer who is engaged by the Government is a matter exclusively within the domain of the executive decision and such a decision cannot be challenged on the ground that other suitable and more competent lawyers have been left out and by doing so the larger public interest has been overlooked.”

The division bench of Justice Rekha Borana and Justice Shree Chandrashekhar was hearing a petition that challenged the Appointments made in February 2024 on the grounds that the same were illegal and arbitrary for not following the mandate and procedure laid down in the Rajasthan Law and Legal Affairs Department Manual, 1999 and the Rajasthan State Litigation Policy, 2018.

It was further argued by the petitioner, claiming himself to be a public-spirited person that by not following the Policy and the Manual, the Appointments violated Article 14 of the Constitution. It was also submitted before the Court that one of the Appointments was made based on the parentage of the concerned advocate since his father was a Cabinet Minister.

After hearing the contentions from both the sides, the Court made reference Om Prakash Joshi, Advocate v State of Rajasthan & Ors, in which it was held that the State Government had the right to engage the Panel Lawyers/ Government Advocates, Additional Advocate Generals etc. of its own choice, exercising the discretion vested in it, and that the writ court was not justified in interfering in the matter.

The Court opined that there could not be any restrictions on this power of the State Government in the form of criteria of eligibility for such Appointments like age, length of practice, place of practice etc. and the same could be modified at any time by the State Government. Such a choice exercised by the State Government could be challenged only if shown to be arbitrary.

In this background, the Court highlighted that the Petitioner had failed miserably in demonstrating the arbitrariness in the Appointments.

Moreover, the Court frowned upon the challenge to one of the Appointments on the grounds of the father of that advocate being a Cabinet Minister and ruled that,

“In our opinion, the appointment of bright young advocates as the Law Officers has unnecessarily been dragged to the Court. An advocate carries an independent identity and he cannot be projected as a ward or relative of any person holding a high post to scandalize his appointment as the Additional Advocate General or a Law Officer.”

The Court further stated that no executive instructions in the Manual or the Policy could by itself be a ground to scrutinize the individual cases in light of the Supreme Court case of J.R. Raghupathy, etc. v. State of A. P. & Ors in which it was held that the guidelines issued by the State Government had no statutory force and were merely for guidance.

Furthermore, the Court also analysed whether the nature of the petition filed could be seen as a PIL and held that while entertaining a petition termed as a PIL, the Court must carefully examine whether the petitioner was acting bonafide and not in personal interest or with some political motivations or other oblique considerations.

The Court made reference to the Supreme Court case of Dr. B. Singh v Union of India & ORs. in which it was held that the PIL should not be filed with the motive to gain publicity and there must be some real and genuine public interest involved which was not a mere adventure borne out of wishful thinking.

After going through all the grounds challenging the maintainability of the PIL like the locus standi of the petitioner, his reckless and sweeping statements in intemperate language made without any substance as well as him not challenging the previous Appointments made using the same procedure, the Court opined that,

“In our considered opinion, the present writ petition does not carry any element of public interest and the State-respondents have rightly challenged the maintainability of the writ petition. True, easy access to justice should not be misused as a license to file misconceived and frivolous petitions… Such statements are highly objectionable and the petitioner who makes such controversial statements must be held to be an irresponsible person who seems to have no regards for the Court proceedings and the prestige and reputation of the Additional Advocate General.”

Furthermore, rejecting Petitioner's plea of writ of quo warranto, the Court held that a legal action for the writ of quo warranto could not be invoked in cases involving private offices or purely contractual relationship. Thus, the writ did not lie in the matter since the posts of AAGs and LOs were not public posts and the advocates engaged on these posts were not holders of any public post.

Finally, the Court observed that while exercising its power under Art. 226, the scope of judicial review was very limited to the principle of illegality and irrationality in the matters of appointments of LOs. And it was not for the Court to make a choice of the advocates for appointment as LOs.

“This cannot be a legal ground to entertain a writ petition labeled as a Public Interest Litigation that claim of every eligible person was not considered in the matter of appointment of Additional Advocate General and other Law Officers.”

It was held that judicial review in contractual matters could be made where violation of Art. 14 was demonstrated, however, no record was produced to show that any of the LOs was ineligible or inefficient for appointment or that their appointments were flawed in law.

In the background of these observations, the Court ruled that it was not in the public interest that the power under Art. 226 was used where the writ petition was based solely on vague allegations and the opinion of the petitioner claiming himself to be the protector of public interest.

Accordingly, the petition was dismissed.

Title: Shri Ishwar Prasad v the State of Rajasthan

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Raj) 381

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