Thiruvananthapuram: Senior lawyer K.K. Venugopal’s junior V. Shyam Mohan’s appointment as the state’s additional standing counsel in the Supreme Court has been in breach of norms as he lacks three years’ experience as Advocate-On-Record (AOR).
Moreover, his appointment was objected to by the finance department but Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s private secretary P.S. Sreekumar told DC that it was Advocate-General K.P. Dandapani who recommended having him in the newly- created post. The previous UDF government had rejected the candidate, citing inexperience.
This is the first time the UDF government has created a new post of additional standing counsel as there are already five standing counsel – M. R. Ramesh Babu, M.T. George, Beena Madhavan, Liz Mathew and Jojy Scaria for Kerala in the SC.
In fact Madhavan’s appointment as standing counsel was shot down by the government earlier citing lack of three years’ experience as AOR. According to legal sources, each state has different sets of rules and as per the 1978 rules Kerala government has stipulated a minimum of three years’ experience as AOR. Moreover, it is the SC which conducts the exams for AOR, where they are solely responsible to file cases before it.
To write the AOR exam, the candidate should have five years of law experience in the SC and also he/she should work for a year under a serving AOR. The last such exam was held in June and the result is still awaited.
Legal sources told DC that Mohan’s appointment is a clear case of merit giving way to political clout as he is the son of KPCC leader Sasthamangalam Mohan. With the backing of Venugopal, it was easy to get him the plum post.
“As far as I know there have been no violations. It was Dandapani who recommended Mohan as additional standing counsel and in the letter he has informed that he is qualified enough for the post,” Sreekumar told DC. However, Dandapani told DC that he was not aware of it.
