Law officers can take up private practice: Prasad

‘But they are disallowed from suits in which the state is party’

New Delhi: Communication and IT Minister Ravishankar Prasad at Parliament House in New Delhi on Wednesday during the budget session. PTI Photo by Kamal Singh (PTI3_4_2015_000095A)

Union Law and Justice Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said here on Tuesday that government law officers were allowed to take up private suits depending on the nature of the case.

On Additional Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta represent Jay Shah in a defamation case filed against a news portal on a report on his growing assets, Mr. Prasad said: “It is a private dispute in which the Government of India is not a party. Mr. Mehta had earlier handled their cases so when he requested permission it was granted. They can never attend cases in which GOI is a party.”

Congress conspiracy

The Minister said the news report was not factually wrong, but the inferences were wrong and an outcome of a “motivated mala fide attempt by a desperate Congress” ahead of the Gujarat Assembly polls.

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“They have sought to paint that he has benefited from the government. I condemn the

mala fide mudslinging and those who have written it [the report] will have to suffer the consequences of law because a defamation and damage suit has been filed,” Mr. Prasad told presspersons here on Tuesday before heading to Thrissur to take part in the Jana Raksha Yatra being undertaken by the party’s State unit.

Trying hard to downplay the issue and evade questions pertaining to it, Mr. Prasad said sons of political leaders had the right to do any business honestly, “which is what he [Jay] has been doing”. “All the taxes are paid and everything is on record,” the Minister said.

Mr. Jay Shah’s lawyer had answered all questions, he maintained.

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He said it surprised him to see Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, out on bail in the National Herald case, making comments on the issue. Launching an onslaught on the Congress and Mr. Gandhi, he said the Congress lost the polls wherever Mr. Gandhi went, and that the Congress habitually kicked up some issue ahead of elections in Gujarat.

He said there was no comparison between Jay Shah’s story and the case pertaining to Robert Vadra, son-in-law of Congress president Sonia Gandhi. “There has been no instance of corruption or impropriety levelled against the government in the past three and a half years.