Quality Of Counsel

The economic offenders get the best legal talent available. On the principle that it is not enough that they should win, but the others must lose too, they corner all the best talent available when an important question of law arises. The array of senior counsel in a tax or excise case against the government would astonish any tax payer. The government is forced to depend upon the castaways.

The lack of zeal and competence on the governments side causes deep anxiety, as a three-judge bench remarked last week. The exasperated judges were forced to record this phenomenon so that the government would wake up and improve the quality of their investigation and advocacy. (K I Pavunny vs Collector of Excise). The government counsel, according to their judgment, did not make any attempt to investigate into a question of law involved and was tending to make concessions against his own side.

 

The judges told him that he was not rendering any assistance to them and the wrong concessions made by him was not binding on them. Thereafter, they investigated into the question of law themselves and came to a different conclusion.

The persons involved in excise cases are white-collared offenders and organised gangsters and they get the best of talent in the profession, the judgment said. It advised the government to take care to entrust these sensitive cases of far-reaching effect to counsel who have experience and ability, lest public justice suffers and economy is put in jeopardy.

It is therefore for the secretaries of the departments of law and finance to look into the matter and set their house in order, the judgment underlined. Equally, the Attorney General of India should also see that the affairs in the central agency (of the law ministry) in the Supreme Court are organised accordingly.