Bringing lawyers from outside a CMs right: VS

THIRUVANANATHAPURAM: Opposition leader V S Achuthanandan asserted that there was nothing wrong during his tenure as chief minister in bringing eminent lawyers from outside the state to argue important cases.“It is the right of a Chief minister. And it was not the first time that noted lawyers were brought to the state from outside,’’ he told mediapersons here on Saturday. Answering queries at a news conference VS said that when it was found that lottery king Santiago Martin was siphoning off Rs 22 crore on a daily basis by evading sales tax and the total drain on the state exchequer was above Rs 22,000 crore due to this, it was his duty as Chief Minister to put an end to this. ‘’It is not Achuthanandan alone who had brought eminent lawyers from outside to argue important cases. During the tenure of Karunakaran, eminent lawyer K K Venugopal appeared in the palmolein case,’’ he pointed out.  In the lottery case, the state had spent Rs 1 crore for bringing lawyers, considering the fact that the loss to  the public exchequer was enormous, he said referring to the recent criticism of the High Court Bench over squandering of public money through employing lawyers from outside, bypassing the Advocate-General and government pleader of the state. Referring to the dual post controversy, VSsaid that the dual post issue with regard to the post of  Opposition leader didn’t arise earlier.