The Rajasthan High Court upheld the appointment of Padmesh Mishra, son of a sitting Supreme Court judge, as Additional Advocate General. The Court ruled that advocacy skill is not bound by years of experience and a quo warranto plea cannot challenge such appointments.
New Delhi: The Rajasthan High Court has held that the appointment of advocate Padmesh Mishra as an Additional Advocate General (AAG) to represent the State government before the Supreme Court is valid and not illegal.
The case where Mishra’s appointment was questioned because he is the son of a sitting Supreme Court judge, Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra, and was alleged to lack sufficient legal experience.
Mishra was appointed as AAG on August 23, 2024. A PIL filed by advocate Sunil Samdaria claimed that Mishra did not meet the required “minimum experience of practice for 10 years” under Clause 14.4 of the Rajasthan State Litigation Policy, 2018. The petitioner said Mishra had only been enrolled since 2019, giving him around five years of experience.
On December 2, a Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma and Justice Baljinder Singh Sandhu dismissed the challenge and ruled that a writ of quo warranto cannot be issued against the appointment of government lawyers in Rajasthan.
The Court said that the selection of a particular counsel is the State government’s prerogative and is not for the Court to re-examine.
The Bench clearly observed that
“Art of presentation of a case and art of advocacy is not bound by years of experience. The years of experience, of course, may have its own importance for the purpose of assessing the knowledge of an individual. However, for the purpose of litigation, a persons who may be having vast knowledge like professor of law, may not be suitable to argue cases in the Court and we, therefore, do not agree that a hard and fast rule may be laid down for appointing any persons as Advocate General and Additional Advocate General or any of the post or any other government lawyer with a different nomenclature and it should be best to left for the litigant to decide. A writ of quo warranto would, therefore, not lie.”
Before this, on February 4, a single judge had already dismissed Samdaria’s plea. The single judge held that the Litigation Policy is not a law but only a guideline. Therefore, the requirement of 10 years of experience was not mandatory.
The petitioner had also challenged Clause 14.8 of the 2018 Policy, saying it was added at the last moment to help Mishra qualify. The clause gives the State the power to appoint any counsel after considering their expertise.
The single judge said that adding this clause was a policy decision of the State Cabinet and courts cannot interfere without strong evidence.
In the appeal, the Division Bench agreed with the single judge’s findings. The Court explained that the Litigation Policy was meant only as guidance for how the State should manage its legal matters. It was never meant to be a strict or enforceable rule.
The Bench further noted that if the State wanted binding rules, it could have framed them under the Proviso to Article 209 of the Constitution.
The Court therefore dismissed the appeal, holding that the appointment was legal and justified. The Bench concluded:
“We, therefore, while following the reasoning as adopted by the learned Single Judge on examining further, as above, conclude that the nomination of respondent No.2 as Additional Advocate General for the Supreme Court by the State Government in terms of the State Litigation Policy departuring from the general rules cannot be said, in any manner, to be illegal, arbitrary and unjustified or whimsical. A writ of quo warranto filed by the lawyer petitioner, based on unforceable State Litigation Policy which does not have any statutory character, therefore, was rightly dismissed by the learned Single Judge and the appeal also deserves to be dismissed.”
Advocate Sunil Samdaria represented himself.
The State was represented by Additional Advocate General Vigyan Shah along with advocates Priyam Agarwal, Rohit Tiwari, Ritika Naruka, Tanvisha Pant, Vivek and Kshitij Jain. Senior Advocate Gagan Gupta and advocate Shashwat Purohit appeared for AAG Padmesh Mishra.
Case Title:
Sunil Samdaria v. State of Rajasthan and Anr
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