Congress Rajya Sabha MP Partap Singh Bajwa has asked Punjab government to release a ‘white paper’ on all lawyers hired outside of Advocate General office to appear for the State in cases and the costs paid per appearance.
Mr. Bajwa, in a statement, said, “It is necessary for us to be judicious about extravagant expenditure when the State has a fully functioning Advocate General’s office to defend its interests. There is no justifiable reason as to why the State must continue paying extravagant fees to lawyers from Delhi, especially in the midst of a global pandemic. It is necessary for the Government to act immediately, lest the faith of the public in the State be irrevocably damaged.”
Mr. Bajwa issued statement in against the backdrop of Punjab and Haryana High Court quashing the probe by the State in the Kotkapura police firing incident of 2015. He said the sacrilege cases are extremely sensitive to the Sikh community and Punjab as a whole.