Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday appointed Nagpur-based lawyer Rohit Deo as the new advocate general 9 months after his predecessor quit.
Deo (56), a friend of Fadnavis, was the associate advocate general and holding the charge of advocate general after Shrihari Aney resigned in March. Congress legislator Sanjay Dutt described the delayed as a case of bad governance.Dutt had filed a writ petition before the high court seeking directions to the government to fill up the state’s top legal post. Dutt’s contention was that it was wrong to keep a Constitutional post vacant for a long time and it had an adverse impact on the administration. “The high court took a serious view of the issues raised by me and observed that many constitutional and statutory functions are suffering due to the government’s failure to appoint an advocate general. It is affecting the cause of justice too,” Dutt said.
Dutt said that during the course of the hearings, the high court asked the state government to specify the date by which the advocate general would be appointed. The state government had then assured that the new advocate general would be appointed by December 30. “The proposal for appointing Rohit Deo as the advocate general was approved by the state cabinet on Tuesday,” a senior official said.
Initially, three leading lawyers were in the zone of consideration, besides Deo. “Since Deo was being considered for appointment on the high court, his name was not considered. However, since the Centre is yet to announce the names of new judges, the CM took the view that Deo would be a better choice. In the event, Deo is elevated, then Fadnavis will have to launch a fresh search to name a new advocate general,” he said.
After Fadnavis took over, Sunil Manohar, a lawyer from Nagpur, was appointed advocate general on November 18, 2014. Manohar quit on June 9, 2015, and was succeeded by Shrihari Aney, who put in his on March 22, 2016.