The Goa office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has sought from the Goa government a complete reply to the queries raised by it on the fees being paid to State Advocate General (AG) Atmaram Nadkarni.
CAG, in a letter to the State government on January 23 this year had sought an explanation and justification on the very high fees being paid to Goa AG. Failing to get a reply, the Deputy Accountant General on April 22, wrote again to the Law Secretary calling for the immediate response, which was followed by another reminder on August 19.
Activist-lawyer Aires Rodrigues filed a complaint with the CAG in May last year. The Under Secretary (Law) replied to CAG in September and gave copies of the appearance certificates of the AG. However, no explanation was given to the query posed by the CAG on the exorbitant fees being paid to the AG as compared to other States.
CAG now in its reply to the Goa Government this week while pointing out that the queries raised remain unanswered has sought an urgent response.
Acting on a complaint the office of CAG made a comparative study with the States of Haryana, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya. In its comparative chart, it drew the government’s attention that while the Goa AG for an appearance before the High Court is paid Rs.10,000 per case, the AG of Haryana is paid Rs.1000 while the AGs of Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya are paid Rs.5000, Rs.3000 and Rs. 2500, respectively. The CAG further informed the Goa Government that while the Goa AG is paid Rs.75,000 for appearance before the Supreme
Court the Haryana AG gets paid Rs.2000 while the AGs of Manipur and Meghalaya get paid Rs.10,000 with the Arunachal Pradesh AG paid Rs.3500.
The complainant had said that Goa, despite being the smallest State was not only hosting India's highest paid AG but the country's highest paid public servant.
Stating that the President of India is paid Rs.1,50,000 a month, the Chief Justice of India Rs.1,00,000 and a High Court Judge Rs.80,000, the complainant had drawn CAG’S attention that AG of Goa is being paid Rs.8 lakh a month besides Rs.75,000 on every visit to Delhi.
According to information obtained by the complainant through Right to Information Act, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on May 23, 2012 had ordered the fee hike to Mr. Nadkarni. Accordingly, on April 8 last year, fees of AG were hiked from a monthly maximum of Rs.5 lakh to Rs.8 lakh with retrospective effect. The AG’s per appearance fee before the High Court too was hiked to Rs.10,000 per case per day.
