Delhi HC Directs Madhya Pradesh to Pay Rs 78.65 Lakh to Senior Advocate Who Appeared in IDA Constitution Bench Matter
Six years after the Supreme Court's Constitution Bench recorded his arguments in the Indore Development Authority case, a Senior Advocate and former Madhya Pradesh Advocate General has won a writ for unpaid fees, with the Delhi High Court rejecting the State's shifting denials and ordering payment with interest.
The High Court of Delhi, by a judgment pronounced on 31 August 2026, directed the State of Madhya Pradesh to pay Rs 78,65,000 to Senior Advocate Anoop George Chaudhari, along with interest at 9% per annum from the date of filing of the writ petition until payment. Justice Sachin Datta, sitting singly, held that the petitioner's engagement by the State, his appearance on thirteen recorded dates before a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, and the rate of his professional fee were all established from contemporaneous official records and from the State's own functionaries' admissions. The State's objection that the claim involved disputed questions of fact warranting relegation to a civil suit was rejected as a device manufactured through self-contradictory positions, each refuted by the State's own documents.
The Dispute Before the Court
In 2019, a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court took up the reference concerning interpretation of Section 24(2) of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, in the batch of matters led by SLP (C) Nos. 9036–38 of 2016, Indore Development Authority v. Manohar Lal & Ors. (the IDA matter). The State of Madhya Pradesh was directly interested in the outcome, the lead petition arising from a judgment of the Madhya Pradesh High Court at Indore.
Civil Appeal Nos. 19532–33 of 2017 in the MP Housing Board v. Malwa IT Park Limited and Ors. matter was tagged with the IDA batch, with the State of Madhya Pradesh arrayed as a respondent. Hearings before the Constitution Bench commenced in October 2019.
Anoop George Chaudhari, a Senior Advocate and former Advocate General of Madhya Pradesh, averred that upon a personal request from the then Chief Secretary and the then Principal Secretary (Law), he agreed to appear on behalf of the State before the Constitution Bench. The then Standing Counsel, Mr. Harsh Parashar, handed over the paper-books and briefed him in both matters. The record of the Supreme Court reflects the petitioner's appearance on fourteen dates of hearing between 16 October 2019 and 11 December 2019.
On 1 December 2019, while the final hearing was ongoing, the petitioner raised 35 consolidated fee bills, all addressed to Mr. Harsh Parashar as Standing Counsel for the State of Madhya Pradesh. Each appearance bill expressly stated that the appearance was on behalf of the Respondent State of M.P. No bill was addressed to the Indore Development Authority or the M.P. Housing Board. The aggregate of all 35 bills was Rs 1,76,55,000.
The Constitution Bench de-tagged the Housing Board matter on 4 December 2019. On 11 December 2019, the Bench concluded the hearing and reserved judgment. On 8 January 2020, the Standing Counsel forwarded the fee bills of both matters to the Principal Secretary (Law) and the Principal Secretary (Revenue) “for remittance of fees as raised in the fee bills.” No payment was ever made.
The petitioner instituted W.P.(C) 13196/2021 in November 2021, seeking his outstanding professional dues from the State of Madhya Pradesh.
The State's Shifting Positions
Despite a last opportunity granted by an order dated 31 October 2022, the State filed no counter-affidavit, and its right to do so was closed by the Registrar in January 2023. A counter-affidavit was eventually filed on 16 May 2023, asserting that the petitioner had been engaged not by the State but by the Indore Development Authority and the M.P. Housing Board. Both those bodies had already denied engaging him—the IDA's reply explicitly stating that the petitioner had been engaged on behalf of the State.
The Law Department's letter of 2 May 2024 claimed there was no record of the petitioner's appointment or of his bills being presented to the Standing Counsel—an assertion irreconcilable with the Standing Counsel's own letter of 8 January 2020, which had forwarded those very bills to the Principal Secretary (Law).
This Court, vide order dated 13 March 2024, requested the Advocate General for the State to look into the matter. A meeting was subsequently convened on 1 November 2025, presided over by the Advocate General and attended by the then Chief Secretary, Mr. S.R. Mohanty, and the then Standing Counsel, Mr. Harsh Parashar. The then Chief Secretary admitted at that meeting that the petitioner had been engaged on behalf of the State in the IDA matter upon the unavailability of another Senior Counsel first proposed, and that the petitioner's bills for effective hearings in the IDA matter “may be processed and settled by the concerned department on the basis of prevailing rates.”
Notwithstanding this admission, the State's written submissions dated 8 May 2026 continued to assert that the petitioner's “very engagement in the matter is disputed.” The Law Department's letter of 11 February 2026 went further, claiming there was “no record of Senior Advocate Shri Anoop George Choudhary appearing before the Hon'ble Supreme Court”—an assertion, the Court noted, falsified by fourteen order sheets of the Supreme Court and by paragraph 8 of the reported judgment of the Constitution Bench.
The State also raised a maintainability objection for the first time in November 2025, nearly four years after the institution of the petition and after it had filed a counter-affidavit on merits and participated in all proceedings.
How the Bench Reasoned on Maintainability
Justice Datta rejected the preliminary objection to maintainability at the threshold. Relying on ABL International Ltd. v. Export Credit Guarantee Corpn. of India Ltd., (2004) 3 SCC 553, the Court held that a writ petition against the State arising out of a contractual obligation is maintainable in an appropriate case, and that the mere raising of a factual dispute by one party does not bind the writ court to relegate the parties to a civil suit. The rule that writ jurisdiction will not be exercised where disputed questions of fact require evidence is a rule of self-restraint, not an inflexible bar.
The Court distinguished the authorities pressed by the State—Union of India v. T.R. Varma, Joshi Technologies International Inc. v. Union of India, and Chairman, Grid Corpn. of Orissa Ltd. v. Sukamani Das—on the basis that each of those cases involved genuine factual controversies that could only be resolved by examination and cross-examination of witnesses. Here, the material facts stood established by contemporaneous official records and by the admissions of the State's own functionaries, leaving no genuine dispute of the kind that requires a trial.
On the specific question of advocates' fee claims, Justice Datta addressed Improvement Trust, Ropar v. S. Tejinder Singh Gujral, 1995 Supp (4) SCC 577, where the Supreme Court had held that no writ petition can lie for recovery of an amount under a contract, adding that there is no separate law for advocates. The Court read that observation as cutting both ways: an advocate is neither entitled to a special dispensation, nor liable to a special disability. The decisions in Improvement Trust, Ropar, New India Assurance Co. Ltd. v. A.K. Saxena, and Vijay Kumar Shukla v. State of U.P. all involved a genuine and serious dispute as to the very entitlement of the advocate. None laid down that an advocate's claim against the State is, as an inflexible rule, outside Article 226.
The Court also noted what it characterised as an internal contradiction in the State's position: having invoked the contractual character of the claim to oust writ jurisdiction, the State simultaneously denied that any engagement ever came into existence. A party cannot characterise a claim as contractual for the purpose of ousting writ jurisdiction while denying the very contract.
The belated timing of the maintainability objection was separately noted as a relevant consideration in the exercise of the Court's discretion under Article 226.
Findings on Engagement and Appearance
Justice Datta anchored the factual analysis in the Supreme Court's own record, noting that the recording of appearances in the Supreme Court is governed by Order IV Rule 1(b) of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013, under which a Senior Advocate can appear only if instructed by the Advocate on Record or permitted by the Court. Appearance slips are furnished by the Advocate on Record. The petitioner's appearance having been recorded on fourteen dates in the same block as the State's Standing Counsel and Advocate on Record—while the IDA and the Housing Board were represented in distinct, separate blocks—led to the inescapable inference that his appearance was given each time by the State's own authorised representatives.
The Constitution Bench's order of 19 November 2019 recorded in its body that the petitioner “made his submissions for some time” after the Solicitor General concluded his arguments. The order of 11 December 2019 reserving judgment recorded him as heard. Paragraph 8 of the reported judgment, Indore Development Authority v. Manoharlal & Ors., (2020) 8 SCC 129, named him as one of the Senior Counsel who made submissions on behalf of the Union, the States and various acquiring bodies.
The engagement was separately confirmed by the then Chief Secretary's admission at the 1 November 2025 meeting, and by the Standing Counsel's own written note, which disclosed that he briefed the petitioner in the Housing Board matter upon being told that senior officers of the State had personally requested the petitioner to appear, and that he thereafter forwarded the petitioner's bills to the Principal Secretary (Law) and Principal Secretary (Revenue) for remittance.
The Court applied the doctrine of approbate and reprobate, drawing on R.N. Gosain v. Yashpal Dhir, (1992) 4 SCC 683, and State of Punjab v. Dhanjit Singh Sandhu, (2014) 15 SCC 144. Having availed the petitioner's services, permitted his appearance through its own Advocate on Record, taken the benefit of the Constitution Bench judgment which records his submissions, and never sought correction of any of the fourteen order sheets or of the reported judgment, the State could not now disown his engagement.
The Court also referred to its own earlier decision in Ravi Prakash Mehrotra v. Delhi Development Authority, 2026 SCC OnLine Del 2122, where an identical set of authorities pressed by a public authority was repelled upon finding that engagement, services rendered, and the applicable rate were established from the record.
Quantum: What Was Allowed and What Was Not
The petitioner claimed Rs 6,05,000 per appearance (Rs 5,50,000 plus 10% clerkage). The State contended this rate was never agreed or sanctioned, relying on a notification dated 4 July 2012 issued by the Law and Legislative Affairs Department, Madhya Pradesh, which prescribed Rs 5,000 per case per day, subject to a maximum of Rs 15,000 per day, for Standing Counsel and Senior Panel Advocates.
The Court rejected the State's rate contention on several grounds. The petitioner had averred on oath, in an affidavit pursuant to the order dated 3 November 2025, that the fee was conveyed to the Standing Counsel before the hearing commenced, and that the Standing Counsel would only forward bills raised as per agreed terms. That averment was not denied by the Standing Counsel in his own written note. The bills were raised on 1 December 2019, while the hearing was ongoing; the State continued to avail the petitioner's services on 3, 4, 10 and 11 December 2019 without objecting to the rate. The Standing Counsel forwarded the bills unconditionally “for remittance of fees as raised.” No communication disputing the rate was ever addressed to the petitioner thereafter.
The notification of 4 July 2012 applied to Standing Counsel and Senior Panel Advocates. The petitioner was neither. The record of the 1 November 2025 meeting itself suggested that the engagement of a Senior Counsel for a Constitution Bench hearing fell outside the purview of that notification. When this Court directed the State to provide information about the fees it had paid the petitioner in other matters in which he had authorisedly appeared, the State responded that despite a “comprehensive and exhaustive exercise” it had been unable to ascertain the same. The Court held that a public authority cannot dispute the only contemporaneous rate before the Court and cite its own inability to retrieve the best evidence capable of contradicting it.
The rate of Rs 6,05,000 per day of appearance was accordingly accepted.
However, the Court disallowed separate appearance fee for the IDA and Housing Board matters when they fell on the same hearing date, the matters having been heard together before the same Constitution Bench on every date until de-tagging. Only a single appearance fee was allowable per day. Conference fees were disallowed entirely, there being no authentic record or admission establishing that the claimed conferences were held.
Appearance on 15 October 2019 was excluded because, though bills were raised for it in both matters, the appearance was not borne out by the record of proceedings placed before the Court. Appearance on 11 December 2019 was excluded for a different reason: no fee bill was filed for that date, even though the appearance stands recorded and the Constitution Bench noted the petitioner was heard. The Court made clear that neither exclusion reflected on the petitioner's probity; the principle applied was that entitlement was limited to dates for which a bill was in fact raised and which were borne out by the Supreme Court's record.
Thirteen dates were accordingly allowed: 16 October, 23 October, 6 November, 7 November, 19 November, 20 November, 21 November, 26 November, 27 November, 28 November, 3 December, 4 December, and 10 December 2019.
On the Obligation of the State Towards Counsel
Justice Datta devoted a separate section of the judgment to what he described as the larger dimension of the matter. Drawing on classical common law tradition—including Lord Denning's observations in Rondel v. Worsley, [1967] 1 QB 443, and Erle C.J.'s formulation in Kennedy v. Broun, (1863) 13 CB (NS) 677—the Court traced the historical conception of counsel's fee as an honorarium, grounded in the independence and dignity of counsel's office and connected with the administration of justice itself.
The Court observed that in India, where the Advocates Act, 1961 unified the profession and no rule disabled counsel from enforcing his fee, the fee is at once a matter of honour and a matter of legal right. Every action of the State, including in the contractual field, is subject to the discipline of Article 14. When the State receives the services of counsel and withholds his fee, the default is arbitrary State action.
The Court expressed concern at what it described as a growing phenomenon of senior advocates being compelled to litigate for unpaid fees, observing that the maintenance of the traditions of the Bar is an obligation cast equally on all who participate in the administration of justice. It adopted the caution of the Supreme Court in State of U.P. v. Gopal K. Verma, Civil Appeal Nos. 2142–2143 of 2024, that if States continue to compel advocates to approach courts to recover fees, talented members of the Bar will be discouraged from appearing for the State at all.
Order
The writ petition was partly allowed. The State of Madhya Pradesh was directed to pay the petitioner Rs 78,65,000 (Rupees Seventy Eight Lakhs and Sixty Five Thousand), together with interest at 9% per annum from the date of filing of the writ petition until the date of payment. Payment was to be made within six weeks of the date of judgment. All pending applications were disposed of.