Judgment

KRISHNA IYER, J.:- An unusual grievance of a Government Pleader, the petitioner, ventilated in a writ petition, was given short shrift by the High Court in a laconic order, but undaunted by this summary brevity the petitioner has pursued his case to this Court under Article 136. In utter nudity, his case is a claim of monopoly of all government cases in the Patna District, including lucrative land acquisition litigation, as part of the professional estate of a Government Pleader. The prospective cash value of this heavy crop of cases is estimated by him to be around one lakh of rupees and this secret is perhaps at the back of this lawyers litigation. Sri Govindan Nair, appearing for him, has, however, argued that his clients claim as the sole representative of Government in courts is not a legal cover for seeking lucre but for vindicating the inviolability of the high public office of Government Pleader by politicking men in the Secretariate or by practitioners of favouritism dressed in little brief authority, a deeper issue in which the Bar has a stake and the Bench must also be concerned. We wholly endorse the view that at some vital levels of justice, the Bench may hang limp if the Bar does not represent. Justice to his office, not love of rupees, was urged as the respectable motivation for this persistent litigation. Maybe.

2. This fabric of facts, on which the grievance in law rests, may be appreciated first. The petitioner was admittedly the Government Pleader for the Patna District, authorised to represent Government in all the civil cases. During the currency of his term a plurality of nine Assistant Government Pleaders was appointed and one of them was put in charge of a bunch of land acquisition cases. The petitioner was requested to make over those briefs to the new nominee. Thereupon, the petitioner challenged the power of Government, like any other litigant, to appoint any other lawyer except under him and never by excluding him. He went to the extent of writing to Government :

"I am, therefore, unable to comply with your instruction in allowing any Assistant Government Pleader to work in this case. I shall myself conduct this case and I have enough time for it."

3. Government wrote back that in future he would be given such cases. Chagrined by this loss of income and mayhem to his monopoly he rushed to the High Court for the universal panacea of a writ. The chemistry of Article 226 is governed by severe rules, and the High Court declined to dispense the magic remedy. So he has sought special leave from this Court but Article 133 has its own conditions and limitations. Sans substantial question of law of public importance which deserves to be decided by the SC or at least flaw in law which is fraught with manifest injustice, there is no other open seasame for this House of Justice. That password has not been uttered here, despite exercises in professional martyrdom the petitioner claims to have suffered, and so we close the door but by a speaking order since counsels arguments have centred on the peril to the public office of Government Pleadership with potential menace to the administration of justice. Mystic muteness, however correct, may sometimes mislead when plain speech may finally silence.

4. What is the gravamen of this Government Pleaders legal grievance? His economic grievance, however much he may hide it, is the prospective loss of fee from land acquisition cases which were spirited away. This commercial aspect is an unhappy temptation against which the legal profession must take care. Having due regard to the rhetoric and reality surrounding the profession, is an avidity for briefs, because they yield a lakh of rupees by way of fees, a clean linen to be washed in court? What, in essence, is the orientation of the bar? Geared to the people or a conspiracy against the laity? The politicisation of government pleadership which is a public office and the lucreloving appetite for law offices, in the abse