NT NETWORK
PANAJI
The government on Friday appointed Saresh Lotlikar, a senior advocate practising at the Goa bench of Bombay High Court as the new state Advocate General, while Dattaprasad Prabhu Lawande as the Additional Advocate General of Goa.
The state cabinet, which had earlier accepted the resignation of Atmaram Nadkarni from the post of the state Advocate General, following his elevation to the post of Additional Solicitor General of India, decided on both these appointments.
Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar later said the Additional Advocate General would be in charge of the special legal cell, which had been formed by the government to handle two matters namely Mhadei water dispute matter and mining matters.
Parsekar said the council of ministers further resolved to recommend to the central government allowing Nadkarni to continue to appear in the highly sensitive state matters like Mhadei matter, mining matters and other important matters such as under construction bridges on Mandovi river and Terekhol river, which are pending either before the Supreme Court or the National Green Tribunal.
“I have already requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi during my recent meeting with him, as regards allowing Nadkarni to argue important cases for Goa, especially the Mhadei matter, as the former state advocate general had carried out detailed study about the same,” the Chief Minister noted, informing that the Prime Minister has given oral consent for the same, observing that this could be done in cases, where the interest of the Union government is not at stake.
“We will now write an official request letter to the Prime Minister in this context,” he concluded.
