Karnataka high court senior advocate Prabhuling Navadgi said he yesterday accepted his appointment to become additional solicitor general (ASG), taking up a post created for the first time ever in the state.

Navadgi will represent the union government before the Karnataka high court and its circuit benches at Hubli-Dharwad and Gulbarga, for three years beginning 8 April.

Navadgi had represented the government of Karnataka in his capacity as additional advocate general for Karnataka in 2011 and, he told Legally India, where he was governed by the Law Officers (Conditions of Service) Rules 1987.

The 1987 rules were created to govern only the Attorney General of India, the Solicitor General of India and additional solicitors general, but governed the additional advocate general post in Karanataka since there was no ASG post created in the state until now.

He had been designated as a senior advocate in July 2014, as reported by Legally India.

Navadgi said that there were two posts of ASG for the four southern states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala until now. Both posts had been created in Tamil Nadu. He said that Mr G Rajagopalan, who was appointed as ASG in Tamil Nadu in August 2014, was transferred to Karnataka for “better coordination and implementation” of government litigation.

The new post was created by the law ministry by a 10 December notification which also created an ASG post each in the states of Punjab & Haryana, Patna, Jharkhand and Gujarat.

For Karnataka and its circuit benches, Jayaraj Bukka was appointed as the Assistant Solicitor General of India for three years in October 2014, for Punjab & Haryana Chetan Mittal took the same post in August 2014, for Jharkhand it was Rajiv Sinha in November 2014, for Gujarat it was Devang Vyas in June 2014 and for Chhattisgarh it was Narendra Kumar Vyas in September 2014.

The notification stated that this move was taken to

- “strengthen the litigation machinery to represent the Union of India (UOI) as a whole”

- “conduct of litigation on behalf of [Union of India] efficiently and effectively”

- “facilitate transaction of business in accordance with procedures and thus enable assigning of functions to legally trained persons” resulting in “greater accountability of Government Departments to curb frivolous litigation”; and

- “boost the morale of Government Department in following the rule of law and defending government policies and preventing high revenue pilferages”

Mukul Rohatgi, who was appointed the attorney general of India on 19 June 2014, is head of the union government’s legal team until 19 June 2017. After these five appointments the central government team will have 40 law officers which includes 12 ASG and 21 assistant solicitor generals appointed in various states last year.