The Gujarat High Court on Monday decided not to hear further into the
allegations of conflict of interest between the state government and the
Nanavati Commission on the ground that the sons of panel chairman G T Nanavati
are appointed as government lawyers.
A division bench decided so after the government produced the rules for
appointments of government lawyers along with the remuneration paid to them.
The court would now hear the petition further on June 28 to the extent where
it has challenged the government’s move to grant nine months’ extension to the
Commission since tax payers’ money is being used for the expenses.
Petitioner Jignesh Goswami has challenged the extension granted to the
Commission in December last year. He has contended that such extensions cannot
be allowed to be granted by the government because it is waste of public money.
During pendency of the petition, Goswami carried out amendments in which he
raised the issue of conflict of interest between the government and the
Commission. He had contended that G T Nanavati’s both sons — Maulik Nanavati
and Dhaval Nanavati — are government lawyers. Maulik represents the government
as Additional Public Prosecutor (APP) in the HC whereas Dhaval represents the
Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation.
Based on this, a division bench of acting Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya
and Justice J B Pardiwala had sought details of APPs from the government.
Government Pleader Prakash Jani said that following the order, they produced
the rules for the appointments of APPs and pointed out that the government only
suggests a name and HC is the appointing authority.
He said the government also produced details of remuneration paid to
different government lawyers to indicate that no preferential treatment was
being given to Nanavati’s sons. “Following this, the court decided not to hear
the issue on conflict of interest,” Jani said.
