Cuttack, March 26: The legal tangle involving Orissa government’s efforts to avoid a CBI probe into the multi-crore mining scam just got complicated.

A public interest litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Orissa High Court against the state government’s “wasteful expenditure” in hiring a special counsel to defend its stand against the necessity of a probe by the central agency.

A member of the Orissa State Bar Council has filed the PIL questioning the rationale behind paying Rs 25 lakh to a senior counsel from Delhi for a single appearance to make out a case against a CBI probe on behalf of the state government. Gyanaranjan Mohanty, the petitioner, who is also the general secretary of the All Orissa Lawyers Association, has sought the intervention of the high court in setting guidelines for the engagement of a senior counsel in special cases to prevent such “wastage of public funds in a routine case”.

“The decision of the state government has resulted in huge financial loss to the public exchequer and is against public interest,” the petition contends seeking direction for recovery of Rs 25,66,676 from the officers involved in the decision. The petitioner has cited the amount on the basis of an extract of a question and answer in the state Assembly.

According to the petition, the government had replied in the House that the senior counsel was paid Rs 25 lakh for one appearance in the high court while a standing counsel was paid Rs 50,000 to assist him. Besides, Rs 16,676 was paid towards flight charges.

“On many occasions the state government has been complaining about paucity of funds for developmental work. On the other hand, it indulges in wasteful expenditure for no reason,” the petition contends.

Orissa High Court had taken up seven PILs on the mining scam for analogous hearing. While the PILs filed by Pratap Rout, Subrat Tripathy, Bhawani Parija, Rini Rath and Surendra Mukhi had sought a CBI probe, Prashanta Das had sought direction to probe the alleged mining scam by constituting a “special investigating team” and monitoring the investigation. Environmental activist Biswajit Mohanty had filed an intervention petition for a CBI probe in the PIL filed by Rini Rath.

The high court has fixed March 29 for the next hearing while allowing the advocate general to file by then a counter affidavit to the PIL filed earlier this month by former MLA Uma Ballav Rath and Talcher-based journalist Purna Chandra Sahoo.