CALANGUTE AND CANDOLIM PANCHAYAT SPEND OVER 50 LACS ON ADVOCATES
By Aires Rodrigues
The North Goa Coastal cash rich Panchayats of Calangute and Candolim together spent a whopping over Rs 50 lacs on advocate’s fees from January 2007 to June this year. This has been revealed in the information obtained under the Right to Information Act.
While the Calangute Panchayat spent Rs 28, 16, 250 on fees for advocates, the neighbouring Candolim Panchayat’s expenditure was Rs 22, 21, 575. Surprisingly the documents reveal that the payments were made without certificates issued by the Courts certifying the appearances.
The documents obtained under RTI also reveal that in many cases the two Panchayats have paid the advocates for appearances in the High Court much more that what the government advocates are paid. A perusal of the documents further reveals that in some cases payments were made to advocates without furnishing details of the cases or dates on which they appeared.
Interestingly the documents reveal that the two Panchayats had not obtained from the government prior approval required when the legal expenses exceed Rs 50,000 a year.
Since the expenditure by Panchayats is incurred from public funds that is a need for transparency and accountability in every paisa spent including that on Advocate fees. The Panchayats have been paying advocate fees for non effective hearings and the Circular relating to engaging advocates at fees prescribed by the Government is not being followed.
As this Government has vowed to bring down litigation involving the government to half, this should also be the thrust and endeveaour of all local self government bodies including Panchayats.
