Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Sept 16: Notwithstanding the fact that litigations against State have increased manifold, the Government has not enhanced the sanctioned strengthen of the Law Officers in both the wings of the High Court during the past several years thereby putting immense pressure on the existing manpower and leading to delay in filing of timely response of the Government.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that for the conduct of cases in which the State or any of its departments/functionaries is a party in the High Court, Government has a sanctioned strength of 24 Law Officers, which includes 10 Additional Advocates General, 8 Deputy Advocates General and 6 Government Advocates besides one Advocate General. Of these, 14 Law Officers have been posted in Srinagar Wing of the High Court while as remaining 10 in Jammu Wing.
During the past some years the litigations against the State have increased considerably because of varied reasons but astonishingly the sanctioned strength of the Law Officers in both the wings of the High Court continued to be same, sources said.
Even following the filling up of the five vacant posts of the Judges in the High Court in the month of March this year the workload on the Law Officers increased considerably but no serious thought has so far been paid by the Government towards increasing the sanctioned strength of the Law Officers, sources rued.
“In view of the prevailing situation, the existing number of Law Officers is being felt meager to handle the immense workload. On one side the Law Officers are falling victim to strain and on the other side the civil cases involving public dealing Government departments are suffering immensely”, sources said.
They disclosed that the civil cases require more attention of the Law Officers as compared to criminal cases as such cases involve obtaining information and clarifications from the concerned departments and preparation of replies. “Due to inadequate strength of Law Officers such cases get stretched for a long period as filing of replies take time in view of immense workload”, sources added.
Keeping in view the prevailing situation, the Advocate General, Mohammad Ishaq Qadri about two months back had written to the Law Department for increasing the strength of Law Officers by creating 10 more posts so that equal number of officers could be deputed in both the wings of the High Court for the conduct of cases in which the State or any of its departments/functionaries is a party. Of these 10 posts, the Advocate General has proposed 4 posts each of Additional Advocates General and Government Advocates and two posts of Deputy Advocates General.
“After examining the proposal of the Advocate General, the Law Department forwarded the same to Finance Department for approval but no decision has been taken by the Finance Department till date despite the fact that the proposal is of immense importance in ensuring timely disposal of the litigations against the Government”, sources said.
How Government can expect the Law Officers to ensure filing of replies in Public Interest Litigations (PILs), as was directed in the recent past, when the sanctioned strength has not been increased during the past several years? asked sources.
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