Litigation in our country is rampant. Many factors contribute to this phenomenon. We have the second largest population in the world; we are mostly an agricultural country and most of litigation in courts is about land disputes; no doubt we have elaborate judicial system and one of the worlds most comprehensive constitution yet our administrative and legal systems are so complicated that they frequently give rise to disputes and hence litigation. Our courts right from the Supreme Court down to the village panchayat, we have the complaint of enormous pendency. The Supreme Court of India and the State High Courts all are seized of the huge problem of pendency. They have, on their level, tried to easy the process of administering law and disposing off cases expeditiously.
Another aspect of our judicial dispensation is that there are innumerable court cases against the Government. The Government is bound to respond to the call of the court. These cases pertain not to one or two departments but to so many departments. This means that the Government has to detail so any officers and officials to respond to the court. In addition it creates huge work for the Attorney General and he cannot cope with it. The function of administration slows down and delivery is adversely affected. In order to overcome this difficulty the Law Minister suggested creation of legal cells in each department. These cells would try to minimize the court-related cases and nip the evil in the bud so that affected people are meted out justice at the source and they have no compulsion to go to a court of law. In pursuance of this decision of the Minister of Law, cells were created and provision was also made for requisite staff to run the legal cells.
However, the entire matter got stuck up at the level of the Finance Department. It created many technical obstructions and did not release funds for the legal cells. The result was that the cells did not function and the purpose for which these were created has been defeated. Knowledgeable source have said that running of these cells would not have cost the exchequer more than a crore of rupees. It is sad that just for a paltry sum the entire scheme has been withheld. If the cells become functional, most of the cases against the Government could be resolved at departmental level. In fact, the functionaries at the administrative level are not all law knowing people nor do they understand the legalities of cases which they are dealing. Presence of a legal cell in the department would have helped them to take into account the legal aspects of the case and reduced the compulsion for the aggrieved party to go to a court of law.
We fail to understand why the Finance Department should create hurdles in the way of a policy of the Government in which the objective is good governance through reducing pendency in courts and avoiding court cases against the Government. Creation of new posts is a matter which gets the nod of the Cabinet only when it is cleared by the Finance Department. It means when the decision of creating departmental legal cells was made by the Government the Finance Department had already been taken on board. Why then should this department create hurdles and delay financial sanction? This is a purely administrative matter and common sense says that no obstruction should have happened.
May be that the Finance Department is overplaying its role and wants to establish its supremacy. We have the State Litigation Policy and the Departments have been given the directions to follow that policy. Constitution of legal cells in all departments is a stipulation of the State Litigation Policy. The Finance Department should take note of it and cooperate in full implementation. Formulated in 2011 State Litigation Policy lays enough thrust on avoiding unnecessary litigation against the State and disposal of matters administratively without the intervention of courts. In this regard, the Policy suggests that every Administrative Department shall have an effective legal cell headed by a Law Officer and Nodal Officer of Administrative Department with full-fledged qualified staff. This is the stipulation and it is violated by not releasing funds for the functionaries who are assigned the duties. It was also mentioned in the proposal that such cells would guide in ensuring proper coordination between departments and Government counsels in fighting cases in the courts of law, which is missing at present. The ground situation today is that in addition to non release of funds for payment of salaries to 38 Magistrates and staff of the courts created on the recommendations of the 13th Finance Commission, the Finance Department is also soft-paddling on the proposal of the Law Department for establishment in all the Administrative Departments despite being aware of the fact that this proposal involves legal cells only meagre financial implication. The Minister for Law has called a meeting of administrative secretaries and the Finance Secretary. We are sanguine that administrative secretaries will realise that sitting on funds does not help run effective and productive administration. We hope the result of this meeting will be positive and funds as allocated in the budget will flow without any hindrance
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