Chandigarh, June 26 -- As many as 20 lawyers, who have been notified in the list of panel counsels to appear for the Chandigarh administration on the civil side before the Punjab and Haryana high court are relatives of politicians and former and sitting high court judges. The list was notified late on June 24 with 59 appointed as junior panel counsels and 57 appointed as senior panel counsels. The list includes two sitting councillors of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and daughter-in-law of a former city BJP chief. There are also a dozen odd relatives of sitting and former judges of the high court. Two of the appointed lawyers are related to the home secretary, UT, Mandeep Singh Brar and his sister, justice Lisa Gill of the Punjab and Haryana HC. Informed sources said till last year, around 70-80 lawyers were on the panel and apparently for the first time the number has gone beyond 100 on the civil side alone, which is led by senior standing counsel. The public prosecutor leads a separate team of lawyers handling criminal cases before the HC. "All those who have been included are competent and meritorious irrespective of their background," senior standing counsel, UT, Amit Jhanji said, adding that these appointments are a "continuous process" subject to periodic review. He further clarified that the administration has tried to give "opportunity to more and more people" and nearly a dozen have been dropped also in the exercise. A functionary associated with the process maintained that these appointments are not like those made for the Advocates General (AG) office in Punjab and Haryana, where a law officer is paid on a monthly basis. "Here in UT, they are paid on a case-to-case basis. Allotment of cases is made by the senior standing counsel. For senior panel counsel, the fee per case is Rs 24,000 and a junior panel counsel is paid a fixed amount of Rs 11,000," the functionary said, adding that all empanelment's are not new. There are a few who have been "promoted". Sources said there is no laid down criterion for the appointment process but the minimum eligibility conditions are there. "The current exercise was going on for 7-8 months. CVs were received in the office of the senior standing counsel and legal remembrance during this period. The same were scrutinised before notifying appointments. The last major review took place in 2019-2020, when the then senior standing counsel and now a sitting judge had overhauled the list," the officer added, seeking anonymity. As per officers, for a senior panel counsel, a lawyer has to have a legal practice of eight years and for junior panel counsels, a minimum of five years legal experience is required. Some of the lawyers who have been notified in the list of panel counsels to appear for the UT administration on the civil side include Anmol Pratap Singh Mann, son of justice (retd) TPS Mann; Deepak Malhotra, a BJP leader; Pritpal Nijjar, son of justice (retd) SS Nijjar and brother- in- law of Amit Jhanji; Shubreet Kaur, daughter of justice (retd) SS Saron; Ruchi Sekhri and two Chandigarh BJP sitting councillors Saurabh Joshi and Maheshinder Singh Sidhu....