Agartala: Tripura government has decided to appoint legal advisors one for every eight districts and one for the police headquarters on an annually renewable contract aiming to guide and assist the police in the investigation and the matter of filing charge-sheets and court proceedings especially in heinous crimes like murder, rape, economic offences and corruption cases.
Law Minister Ratan Lal Nath said the incumbent must have five years of experience in conducting criminal cases in the courts. However, retired law officers of any state or central government department will also be considered eligible for the posts and as a certificate of experience the applicants must be accompanied with certified copies of five judgments where they had played the role of a lead lawyer.
According to notification, the district level legal advisors will be paid a consolidated sum of rupees one lakh while the salary of the legal advisor for police headquarter will be Rs 1.5 lakh along with a maximum of 15 days paid leave in a year.
The appointment will be on a full-time basis and no right to private practice will be allowed and the appointees shall be bound by oath not to take up any case in which they worked during tenure as an advisor after the termination of the contract midway or at the end of the period.
Meanwhile, the decision to appoint contract-bound legal advisors has drawn flak from the opposition which looks upon the decision to monitor and control more tightly the functioning of state police. The CPI (M) said that by appointing the legal advisors the state government will twist normal police functioning and throttle all opposition while congress found it is politically motivated, as there has been a large number of public prosecutors, assistant public prosecutors besides, advocate general.
