Bengaluru: Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa has reportedly decided to drop several lawyers engaged by the Karnataka government to fight its water disputes with neighbouring states based on an assessment of their work.
The lawyers in the line of fire include Anitha Shenoy, Gurududatta Ankolekar, Gangadharaiah, K. Vishweshwaraiah, Ranveer Singh, Jirali and Brijesh Kalappa, who also happens to be the All India Congress Committee spokesperson.
The government, has however decided to retain senior counsel, Fali Nariman, Mohan Katarki, Shyam Divan and Nishant Patil. While it is also keen on engaging the services of senior counsel and former Attorney General, Mukul Rohatgi, it hasn’t met with much success as yet, according to sources.
On Wednesday, Mr Kalappa had posted a long message of his conversation with a retired bureaucrat on his FB page in which the latter spoke in glowing terms about his contribution to fighting Karnataka’s case in the Krishna river water dispute.
Whether the government took note of Mr Kalappa’s post is unclear, but it certainly did not save him from being dropped by it as its counsel. While Mr Kalappa’s removal is not entirely surprising as he belongs to the Congress party, the dropping of Mr Jirali, who was appointed by the previous BJP government and contributed a great deal to the state’s case in the Mahadayi dispute, has raised eyebrows, particularly as he is considered close to Mr. Yediyurappa.
However, going by sources, the government decided to drop Mr Jirali to appear impartial in the matter and dodge jibes of a political vendetta from the Congress.
