{"id":297416,"date":"2023-07-21T14:00:21","date_gmt":"2023-07-21T08:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/?p=297416"},"modified":"2023-07-26T15:24:27","modified_gmt":"2023-07-26T09:54:27","slug":"madras-hc-directs-state-nominate-nodal-officer-look-after-professional-fee-claim-made-by-law-officers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/2023\/07\/21\/madras-hc-directs-state-nominate-nodal-officer-look-after-professional-fee-claim-made-by-law-officers\/","title":{"rendered":"Madras HC directs State to nominate Nodal officer to deal with requests for engaging law officers, and to look after professional fee claims"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Madras High Court:<\/b> In a writ appeal filed by the State against the order dated 15-11-2021 by the Single Judge, wherein the Court directed the State to sanction and pay the eligible fee payable to the respondent considering the claim made by him, within 2 weeks, the division bench of R. Suresh Kumar*<\/b> and K. Kumaresh Babu, JJ. has directed the State Government to nominate a Nodal Officer in the rank of Secretary or Additional Secretary of the State Government for dealing with the requests of various departments for nomination of Advocate General and Additional Advocate General (AAG) for the appearance in important cases.<\/p>\n

Background:<\/b><\/p>\n

The respondent is a practising Advocate since 1972 and in 2006, he was appointed as AAG-II of the State of Tamil Nadu and he was subsequently designated as a Senior Advocate and later in 2009, he was appointed as AAG – I. In that capacity, he appeared in several cases for the State before this Court as well as before the Madurai Bench of this Court between 2006 – 2011. He had claimed his eligible fee per day\/per case basis and thereafter, he resigned the post of Additional Advocate General – I. Therefore, from the year 2006 to 13-05-2011, the respondent submitted various bills for his appearance as AAG- II and I, in respect of various departments and according to him, the outstanding amount is Rs. 1,95,01,622\/-.<\/p>\n

The Court took note of the letter written by Advocate General to the Chief Secretary to Government of Tamil Nadu, wherein the Advocate General has traced what had happened in these kinds of cases in past and on some occasions, observations had been made by this Court on the attitude of the Government in not paying the legal fee to the law officers. Therefore, to avoid this kind of unpleasantness where the formal law officers of the State are driven to come before this Court to make a lis for their professional fees, the Advocate General has suggested certain measures.<\/p>\n

After taking note of the said letter, the Court gave the following directions to the State to take steps to issue guidelines in respect of consideration and clearance of the professional fee bills for the law officers of the State at various levels:<\/p>\n