NEW DELHI: The NDA government is facing a shortage of law officers to represent it in court as so far, three senior law officers appointed by the Modi government have quit and the government is finding it difficult to fill critical posts like Solicitor General (SG) and Additional Solicitor General (ASG) in the Supreme Court .
Attorney General (AG) Mukul Rohatgi, who declined an extension to his three-year term, was the first to quit citing personal reasons in May last year. Then SG Ranjit Kumar, resigned last October citing personal reasons also.
It’s been almost a year since Ranjit Kumar resigned, but the government has not found a replacement, which is leaving its team of top lawyers short-staffed and overburdened.
The SG’s job is the most sought after apart from that of the AG, as it is the SG who generally demarcates cases for ASGs after consultations with the AG. The SG is also responsible for rendering legaladvicee to the government and its various departments.
Apart from the AG and SG, the government has nine ASGs in the top court and their tenure is usually three years.
Early this year, the government appointed three new ASGs, Sandeep Sethi for the Delhi High Court, Aman Lekhi and Vikramjit Banerjee for the Supreme Court, increasing the number of ASGs in the apex court to five.
However, in July, ASG Sethi, who was representing the Centre in the Delhi High Court, also resigned, four months into his appointment.
For the present government, finding efficient law officers to represent it has been a challenge since Rohatgi quit. After ruling out senior advocates who served during the previous Congress-led governments, the NDA is left with few choices.
At present there are seven ASGs in the SC, Maninder Singh, Tushar Mehta, P S Narsimha, Atmaram Nadkarni, Pinky Anand, Vikramjit Banerjee and Aman Lekhi.