K’taka to spend nearly 60 lakh per day on lawyers to fight border row

Bengaluru: In order to fight the Maharashtra-Karnataka border dispute in Supreme Court, the state government will be spending Rs 59.9 lakh a day as fee on a team of senior lawyers, including Mukul Rohatgi.
The order was issued on January 18. As per the order, Rohatgi will be paid Rs 22 lakh a day for appearing before the apex court and Rs 5.5 lakh per day for conference and other works.
Shyam Divan, another lawyer, will be paid Rs 6 lakh a day for appearing before the court, Rs 1.5 lakh per day for preparation of the case and other works and Rs 10 lakh for outstation visits per day.
The government will bear the expenses on hotel facilities and business class air travel too. The Karnataka Advocate General will be paid Rs 3 lakh a day for appearing in the SC, Rs 1.25 lakh per day for preparing cases and other works, Rs 2 lakh on outstation visits apart from bearing the hotel and business class air travel expenditures. Yet another lawyer Uday Holla will be paid Rs 2 lakh per day for appearing in the apex court, Rs 75,000 per day for preparation of the case, Rs 1.5 lakh per day for settlement of pleadings and other works, and Rs 1.5 lakh per day for outstation visits apart from hotel and travel expenses. The Maharashtra-Karnataka border dispute dates back to 1957 after the reorganisation of states on linguistic lines. Maharashtra laid claim to Belagavi, which was part of the erstwhile Bombay Presidency, as it has a sizable Marathi-speaking population. It also laid claim to over 800 Marathi-speaking villages which are currently part of Karnataka.