PILs have been filed in the Madras High Court today seeking a direction to Union Ministries of Home and Law and Justice and the State Chief Secretary and Law Secretary to frame guidelines and appropriate rules for appointment of Law Officers for Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
Advocates G Krishnamoorthy and V Vasanthakumar in their PILs submitted that unless the appointment of Law Officers is made fairly based on the merit, ability and integrity the justice delivery system would be in peril.
A division bench comprising justices M Sathyanarayanan and M V Muralidharan directed to tag the PIL's with identical petitions already filed in the court and posted the matter for further hearing to July 14.
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The petitioners submitted that the post of Law Officer is a public post with greater responsibility in the administration of justice.
Submitting that loyalty to the ruling party gets priority in the appointments of Law Officers, the petitioners said integrity, capability, honesty, efficiency and legal acumen of the lawyers becomes secondary.
Observing that the Law Officers are conducting cases on behalf of the state and not at the instance of the ruling party, the petitioners said, "In reality it is an unwritten rule that whichever party comes to power, the advocates who are sympathisers of that party are appointed as Law Officers."
The petitioners submitted that presently appointing non-political and efficient advocates as Law Officers has decreased. Whichever party comes to power wants to appoint party loyalists as Law Officers mostly and try to make them as judges in due course, they contended.
"It is not a surprise that the rate of conviction in criminal cases has become low, while crime rate has increased in geometrical proportion and most of the cases where the government is a party go unrepresented", they said.
The petitioners, while quoting an earlier observation of the High Court that if the party loyalists are appointed as Law Officers, they would think only on party lines and not as Law Officers, said they had already sent the representation in this regard to the state and central authorities for which they had not received any reply.
