The State government on Thursday terminated the services of 30 law officers in the Principal Seat of the Madras High Court here and four in the Madurai Bench with immediate effect after ordering payment of retainer fee instead of issuing a month’s notice to them as per Rule 7(1) of the High Court of Madras and its Bench at Madurai (Appointment) Rules of 2017.
The government also appointed a fresh set of 72 law officers for the principal seat here and 31 for the Madurai Bench. Sources said that law officers considered close to sidelined AIADMK leaders V.K. Sasikala and T.T.V. Dhinakaran had been shunted out by the present regime led by Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam.
Officials in the High Court pointed out that only Special Government Pleader (SGP) K.V. Dhanapalan and Additional Government Pleader (AGP) Vasutha Thiyagarajan had tendered resignations, and hence, they would not be eligible for the retainer fee.
The services of four other SGPs, 13 AGPs and 13 Government Advocates in Chennai were terminated by the government.
Among those whose services had been terminated in Madurai were SGPs M. Govindan, M. Alagudevan and C. Selvaraj and AGP T.R. Janardhanan. The new appointees included some of the existing law officers who had been either retained in the same post held by them or given better positions such as SGPs and AGPs from the grade of Government Advocate (GA).
The new appointees for the principal seat here include 10 SGPs, 24 AGPs and 26 GAs (civil side), two GAs (Tax) and 10 GAs (criminal side).
The Madurai Bench would now get four SGPs, 11 AGPs, nine GAs (civil side) and seven GAs (criminal side). All the new appointments had been made for a period of two years.
The prominent among the new appointees in Chennai are E. Balamurugan who had been elevated as SGP from AGP and K. Bhuvaneswari and K. Rajendraprasad who had been elevated as AGPs from GAs. The new SGPs include V. Shanmuga Sundar, C. Munusamy, V. Kadhirvelu, R. Bala Ramesh, C. Thirumaran, Vikaran Ramakrishnan, Vineet Subramani, J. Balagopal and J. Pothiraj.
In Madurai, GAs J. Gunaseelan Muthiah and K. Anbarsan had been elevated as AGPs. The new SGPs for the Madurai Bench are S. Nagarajan, R. Sethuraman, J. Padhmavathi Devi and S. Srimathy. The government had recently made changes to those holding the post of Additional Advocate General too and appointed as many as nine advocates to the post.
