Rajasthan AAG mentions Bar & Bench case for early listing, Supreme Court turns down

Additional Advocate General for Rajasthan, Abhinav Sharma today made a mentioning of the case filed in the Supreme Court by Bar & Bench Editor Pallavi Saluja and Correspondent Meera Emmanuel..Sharma mentioned the matter before Justice Madan Lokur, submitting that Bar & Bench is “not authorised” to publish any article relating to his appointment as AAG even in the wake of yesterday’s Supreme Court order. He, therefore, prayed for an early hearing of the case..The Bench of Justices Lokur, Deepak Gupta, and Hemant Gupta declined to entertain the plea for early hearing, stating that notice has been issued in the case returnable in three weeks. The case will come up in the first week of January, Justice Lokur said..Yesterday, the Supreme Court had stayed an order of the Rajasthan High Court which had imposed a gag on Bar & Bench and other print and electronic media from reporting on the controversy surrounding the appointment of Rajasthan AAG Abhinav Sharma..The case has its genesis in a Rajasthan High Court order issuing notice in a petition by advocate Sunil Samdaria challenging the appointment of Sharma as AAG..Sunil Samdaria in his petition had contended that Sharma’s April 2018 appointment as AAG is violative of the Rajasthan Law and Legal Affairs Departmental Manual, 1999, the Litigation Policy of 2011, the law laid down by the Supreme Court in State of Punjab v. Brijeshwar Singh Chahal, as well as Abhinav Sharma’s personal undertaking before the Supreme Court in 2015..Sharma had initially been appointed an AAG in January 2014. However, in view of three criminal cases pending against him, Samdaria had challenged this appointment before the Rajasthan High Court the same year..In April 2015, the High Court had quashed Sharma’s 2014 appointment as AAG on grounds of absence of personal integrity and lack of effective consultation prior to the challenged appointment, which served to vitiate the same for having compromised the institutional integrity of the AAG’s office..Whereas a Special Leave Petition was filed challenging this verdict, Sharma eventually undertook to demit the office of AAG before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court’s order mentions that the appeals were “allowed”, and the case was disposed of only in view of Sharma’s undertaking that he would voluntarily give up the office of AAG. As noted in the Supreme Court’s order, nothing survived to adjudicate once Sharma resigned from the AAG’s office..Consequently, the Rajasthan government accepted Sharma’s resignation in June 2015, effective from May that year..However, in April 2018, the Rajasthan government again notified the appointment of Sharma as an AAG, presumably on the premise that he has been discharged in certain criminal proceedings. Samdaria had then challenged the same again, arguing that it was an erroneous decision which was made ignoring certain criminal proceedings still pending against Sharma. The Bench of Justices Mohammad Rafiq and Goverdhan Bardhar issued notice in Samdaria’s new petition..Bar & Bench reported the same, whereupon Sharma approached the Rajasthan High Court seeking a gag on reportage surrounding his appointment. This application came up before another Division Bench presided by Chief Justice Pradeep Nandrajog. This Division Bench allowed Sharma’s application and directed Bar & Bench to pull down the story. This prompted Bar & Bench to approach the Supreme Court in appeal..Read the order:

Rajasthan AAG mentions Bar & Bench case for early listing, Supreme Court turns down

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