Case: Mundrika Prasad Sinha Vs. State Of Bihar

An unusual grievance of a Government Pleader, the petitioner, ventilated in a writ petition, was given short shrift by the High Court in a laconic order, but undaunted by this summary brevity the petitioner has pursued his case to this Court under Article 136. In utter nudity, his case is a claim of monopoly of all government cases in the Patna District, including lucrative land acquisition litigation, as part of the professional estate of a Government Pleader. The prospective cash value of this heavy crop of cases is estimated by him to be around one lakh of rupees and this secret is perhaps at the back of this lawyersfabric of facts, on which the grievance in law rests, may be appreciated first. The petitioner was admittedly the Government Pleader for the Patna District, authorised to represent Government in all the civil cases. During the currency of his term a plurality of nine Assistant Government Pleaders was appointed and one of them was put in charge of a bunch of land acquisition cases. The petitioner was requested to make over those briefs to the new nominee. Thereupon, the petitioner challenged the power of Government, like any other litigant, to appoint any other lawyer except under him and never by excluding him. He went to the extent of writing toam, therefore, unable to comply with your instruction in allowing any Assistant Government Pleader to work in this case. I shall myself conduct this case and I have enough time forwrote back that in future he would not be given such cases. Chagrined by this loss of income and mayhem to his monopoly he rushed to the High Court for the universal panacea of a writ. The chemistry of Article 226 is governed by severe rules, and the High Court declined to dispense the magic remedy. So he has sought special leave from this Court but Article 136 has its own conditions and limitations.

Reasoning: We fully appreciate the perspective presented by counsel. But before we come to that, let it be bluntly stated that if Government does an act offending the public office filled by a Government pleader what becomes the incumbent in the land of Gandhi is a dignified renunciation of office, not a chase for the lost briefs through the writ route. Moreover, the legal position is plain. As explained earlier, a bunch of Government pleaders is perfectly permissible consistently with Section 2(7) and Order 27 rule (4) Civil Procedure Code. Nor do the Bihar rules regarding government pleaders help. They are purely administrative prescriptions and serve as guidelines and cannot found a legal right, apart from the fact that they do not contradict Governments power to appoint more than one Government Pleader. Allocation of work or control inter se is an internal arrangement and we see no error even in that behaviour. Not to have provided more government counsel when the volume of litigation demanded it, would have clogged the dockets in Court and helped one pleader to corner all the briefs without reference to expeditious or efficientto t he larger submission of counsel for the petitioner, we do recognise its importance in our era of infiltration of politicking even in forbidden areas. A Government pleader is more than an advocate for a litigant. He holds a public office. We recall with approval the observations a Division Bench of the Madras High Court made in Ramachandran v. Alagiriswami and regard the view there, expressed about a Government Pleaders office, as broadly correct even in the BiharGovernment Pleaders and Assistant Government Pleaders were appointed according to administrative rules of the State. Each one is a Government Pleader under Sec. 2(7),Code of Civil Procedure.It is heartening to notice that the Bihar Government appoints these lawyers after consultation with the District Judge. It is in the best interest of the State that it should engage competent lawyers without hunting for political partisans regardless of capability. Public offices and Government Pleadership isnot succumb to Tammany Hall or subtler spoils system, if purity in public office is a desideratum. After all, the State is expected to fig ht and win its cases and sheer patronage is misuse of power. One effective method of achieving this object is to act on the advice of the District Judge regarding the choice of Government pleaders. When there were several thousand cases in the Patna courts and hundreds of cases before a plurality of tribunals, it was but right that Government did not sacrifice the speedy conduct of cases by not appointing a number of pleaders on its behalf, for the sake of the lucrative practice of a s ingle government Pleader. It is inconceivable how he would have discharged his duties to the court and to his client if this crowd of land acquisition cases were posted in several courts more or less at the same time. Adjournment to suit advocates convenience becomes a bane when it is used only for augmentation of counsels income, resisting democratisation and distributial justice within the profession. These principles make poor appeal to, those who count, which is a pity.