The State government has created a temporary post of Special Senior Counsel for Government and appointed former Advocate General A.L. Somayaji to the post to deal with cases of “special importance and complicated nature.”
It had issued two Government Orders, one for the creation of the post and another for the appointment. The first G.O. stated that the post will carry a monthly retainer fee of ₹75,000 and other remuneration applicable to the Advocate General.
Mr. Somayaji was the Advocate General between March 2013 and August 2016, when J. Jayalalithaa was the Chief Minister. He was succeeded by Senior Counsel R. Muthukumaraswamy, who resigned on health grounds in August 2017.
Law officers said the creation of a Special Senior Counsel post did not come as a surprise since Mr. Somayaji appeared for the State in the Thoothukudi police firing case in May 2018 when Advocate General Vijay Narayan was in the United States.
Similarly, during the sudden midnight hearing of a case filed for burying DMK patriarch M. Karunanidhi’s mortal remains on the Marina beach here, the State government engaged Senior Counsel C.S. Vaidyanathan since Mr. Narayan was in Delhi then.
