SHILLONG, OCT 7: The High Court Bar Association on Wednesday accused the Meghalaya government of hiding the expenditure incurred on Advocate General Amit Kumar and outstation lawyers, after its RTI plea was rejected on the 30th day invoking Section 8.
Secretary General Kishore Gautam said the denial proves the government does not want the public to know how much is being spent.
“We have also filed an RTI application to find out the amount of public fund being spent for the office of the Advocate General and all these outstation lawyers. Interestingly, they have 30 days to give information. On the 30th day I received a letter saying they cannot give the information, taking exception under Section 8 which is absolutely not legally tenable,” Gautam said.
“We have filed an appeal. Let us see what happens. It is very clear that the government is trying to shield, the government does not want the amount of public fund being spent on the Advocate General and his office to come out because then the public will also understand why we are agitating,” he said.
Gautam said crores are being spent on the Delhi-based AG’s office while the state can ill-afford it.
“A lot of money is being spent for running the office of the Advocate General who comes from Delhi and crores and crores are being spent. Earlier we had Advocate Generals, if you do the comparison you would see a very big difference,” he said.
“For a state like ours, we need not spend so much just to run the office of the Advocate General and the outstation lawyers who come from outside and stay in five-star hotels,” Gautam said.
He said the Bar will continue to pursue the information.
“That information has been denied to us. We have taken the next step of filing an appeal which also I think will be denied but we will keep on taking future course of action. They cannot take exception of Section 8 because public funds are involved,” he added.
Questioning Kumar’s elevation, Gautam said, “Amit Kumar was not a designated senior when he came here. In fact, there is a very interesting thing also, he was designated from here and at that point of time also we had called for a general body meeting. We wanted to challenge his designation also but we were not able to do so.”
“Now one person is holding everything at ransom. We have come to a situation that we have to boycott courts because of one person. The public are suffering, the legal fraternity is suffering and the government is silent. This shows the state of affairs,” Gautam said.
By Our Reporter
