Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) secretary Gaurav Bhatia rubbished a news report alleging he was removed today from the post of additional advocate general (AAG) of Uttar Pradesh, saying that he had filed his request to be relieved more than a month back.

Bhatia, who was representing the UP government before the Supreme Court as AAG for the last four years, said he had requested the government to let him go as he was not able to focus on his private practice. He told Legally India that the UP government had asked for him, by name, on most of its important cases in the last four years.

But according to news website Janta Ka Reporter’s “sources in the Supreme Court and the state government”, UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav was “not pleased” with Bhatia’s inability to represent the government successfully with the Supreme Court, and “was also unhappy” with Bhatia’s “reported rifts” with the SCBA’s former president Dushyant Dave.

Bhatia said that he had never heard of this news website and it was possibly not a credible news source, therefore he would not like to comment on its report.