*No decision yet on creation of legal cells in all deptts
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Apr 28: Sending a message loud and clear that it will not budge, the State Government has failed to learn lesson from frequent orders of the High Court seeking personal appearances of the senior bureaucrats for adopting dilly-dallying approach towards implementation of directives in the Public Interest Litigations (PILs) on various issues of immense public importance. Due to non-serious stance of the Government, the lack of coordination and delay in taking decisions on almost all the orders of the High Court continue to prevail in majority of the departments.
During the past several months, the Jammu as well as Srinagar Wings of the High Court are being compelled to frequently issue orders seeking personal appearances of the senior officers including those of the rank of Administrative Secretaries for non-compliance to the directives issued particularly in various PILs.
What to talk of Administrative Secretaries and other high ranking officers, even the Chief Secretary, head of the bureaucracy in the State, has received personal appearance notices in both the wings of the High Court in numerous PILs thereby creating major embarrassment for the entire administrative structure of the State.
The High Court, in a number of orders passed in Public Interest Litigations, has observed: “We are compelled to call the personal appearance of the officers when nothing moves on their part for months or years together and when the officers sit over the files for quite long time without any justified ground”.
The dilly-dallying stance on the implementation of the orders of the High Court is notwithstanding the fact that High Court grants sufficient time to the bureaucrats on the pleadings of the Law Officers/Government Advocates. When nothing moves, the High Court is compelled to seek the personal appearance of the officers to ascertain the reasons behind willfully disobeying the orders.
Shockingly, the Government has not learnt any lesson from repeated personal appearance notices to take corrective steps to ensure timely implementation of orders and to avoid embarrassment, official sources told EXCELSIOR, adding “till date no exercise has been initiated to overcome the lack of coordination and delay in taking decisions at any level in the administrative structure of the State”.
Pointing towards the lack of coordination, sources said, “generally the concerned departments don’t receive the copies of the orders of the High Court from the concerned Law Officer/Government Advocate on time and this leads to delay in filing of timely response”, adding “moreover, there is a vacuum between the Law Officers and concerned Administrative Departments as a result of which Law Officers are left with no other option but to plead for grant of more time from the courts to implement the orders instead of filing compliance report”.
About delay in administrative decisions, sources said, “there is a tendency of sleeping over the orders and just passing the instructions to the Law Officers/Government Advocates to seek time by making a mention that matter is under consideration of the concerned department”, adding “it has also been seen that majority of the issues get struck up in the Finance and Planning Departments for want of their concurrence and this creates embarrassment for the Administrative Secretaries of other departments”.
In order to ensure proper coordination between the Law Officers, Law Department and other Departments, a proposal was mooted several months back for creation of Legal Cells in all the departments on the pattern of Planning and Finance Wings but the proposal is still gathering dust, sources said.
“After detailed exercise, the Law Department had sent the proposal mentioning requirement of creation of manpower of three-four officers for each Legal Cell in all the 24 departments to the Finance Department for approval but no decision has been taken on the same till date”, sources said, adding “had such cells been created there would have been proper coordination and embarrassment for the Government in the form of personal appearance of the senior bureaucrats would have been avoided to a large extent”.
Pointing towards the rules framed by the Governor for appointment of Law Officers/ Government Advocates, sources said, “there should not be any move to either dilute the rules or violate the same as the competent Law Officers are vital tool to properly project the Government stance before the judiciary”.
“The prevailing situation suggests that Government should immediately take steps to ensure proper coordination and prompt implementation of the High Court orders so as to avoid personal appearance of the senior bureaucrats, which not only creates embarrassment for the entire Government but also put the routine administrative work to unnecessary delay”, sources stressed.
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