UP gets new advocate general

Vijay Bahadur Singh, who was ousted from the BSP in 2013 for admiring then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, has been appointed the new advocate general of Uttar Pradesh.

After being shown the door by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati, Singh had approached the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for a ticket but was denied. He then joined the Samajwadi Party (SP) and now has been rewarded with the top law officers position.

Singh replaces senior lawyer V.C. Mishra, who was sacked July 29 by the Akhilesh Yadav government for reasons not yet known.

While the state government had assigned Additional Advocate General C.B. Yadav to look after the administrative duties of the advocate general, a PIL was filed before the Allahabad High Court on the vacancy.

A bench of Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice D.K. Arora while hearing the petition had taken a strong view of the vacant position and had directed the state government to appoint an advocate general latest by Sep 4.

With just a few days left for the high court deadline and the chief minister on a week-long trip to Netherlands, V.B. Singh's appointment was cleared Sunday.