Centre has stalled payment of our lawyers represented in SC: Sisodia

NEW DELHI: The central government has stalled the payment of the lawyers who represented the government in the Supreme Court, alleged Deputy CM Manish Sisodia on Friday. "Now, BJP gets officers to stall payment of bills to lawyers who appeared for Delhi govt in SC. IAS officers refuse to pay bills of lawyers," he tweeted. Adding to this, CM Arvind Kejriwal tweeted, "Absolutely shocking. Because central government lost the case in SC, is it right for them to stall payments to Delhi government's lawyers, who appeared in that case, by pressurizing Delhi government officers? Does it not amount to obstructing the administration of justice?".

This happened a day after, the Delhi government reinstated its panels of lawyers for the Supreme Court and High Court. "LG had cancelled Delhi government's panels of advocates in HC and SC, due to which Delhi government's cases in these courts were suffering. On Thursday, Delhi government restored both panels," Kejriwal tweeted.

The panel included senior lawyers such as Indira Jaising, Rebecca Mammen John and Colin Gonsalves. With the reinstatement of the panel, the payments that were to be made to the lawyers, which did not get the LG's approval, are also expected to be cleared. The move comes a week after the Supreme Court said that the elected government does not require the concurrence of the LG and that he only needs to be informed of its decisions. When the panels were scrapped in May, Baijal had called them invalid and said there were procedural lapses in their appointment.