The State High Court as been hearing a PIL litigation about the action taken by the Government to put an end to the encroachments on the banks of Tawi and unauthorized mining in the river bed. The DB had asked the Division Bench to submit compliance report on the orders of the Court while hearing the case. The Divisional Commissioner has submitted the report which the DB rejected after going through it. The reason given by the DB is that the report only speaks about what end where encroachments have taken place. It does not speak about what action the administration has taken to vacate these encroachments and stop further encroachments.
It has now become clear that there is nexus between the land grabbers, revenue and other officers and functionaries and they are under the protective wing of higher authorities. The compliance and other status reports submitted to the court clearly indicate that they want to circumvent the real issues of land grabbing, illegal mining, polluting the waters and other activities like that. Of late we have seen a new culture developing in our administrative structure and that is the culture of underestimating the force in the orders of the court. It is a very unhealthy sign and does not augur well for any Government that wants to shift to good governance. The very fact that the DB has rejected the compliance report of a very important Government functionary, the Divisional Commissioner and has cast aspersions on the District Commissioner is a clear indictment of the Government for its incompetent and ineffective administration. Moreover, the High Court summoning heads of the departments or the police chiefs or the secretaries and commissioner to be present in the court at the time of hearing of PIL itself is something about which the higher echelons including the Legislative Assembly should be mindful. This is not the first time that we have tried to draw the attention of the Government to very negative trait of culture developing in the administrative structure.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel