Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Nov 15: More than 500 cases are pending in High Court and Supreme Court against the Jammu Kashmir Public Service Commission, which has already been in the eye of storm over no transparency in its system of carrying recruitment and conducting exams for different services, including prestigious J&K Civil Services Exams.
There are eight pending cases in the Supreme Court and 500 in J&K High Court while JKPSC has spent Rs 34,83,200 since 2014-15 on contesting these cases.
The amount being spent by JKPSC on contesting these cases has been excess to the annual legal budget since 2015-16. During the period of these three years, an excess amount of Rs 10,58,200 from the legal budget has been spent so far.
Information in this regard was secured in response to an RTI application by Raman Sharma, an RTI activists.
The reply reveals that as on date, JKPSC is facing 500 cases against it in the Jammu and Kashmir High Court and 8 cases are also pending against it in the Supreme Court of India.
The reply also states that JKPSC has also moved to J&K High Court as petitioner in 15 cases and filed appeals in Supreme Court in 2 cases during the last 3 years.
With regard to the fees spent Commission in contesting these cases before the courts, the RTI reply discloses that an amount of Rs 3,48,3200 has been paid by it as legal fees during the last 3 years whereas its budget sanction for legal expenses was only Rs 24,25,000.
During the financial year 2016-17, the legal expenses of the Commission were double as compared to its annual budget under relevant head (FY 2016-17) which was Rs 7.00 lakh only whereas the Commission spent Rs 14,70,300 to meet its legal expenses.
Similarly, in the current financial year, JKPSC has so far spent 789500 as legal fees whereas the annual Legal Budget for 2017-18 is only Rs 5.25 lakh.
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