Adverse orders, strictures against Govt from courts
*Slackness noticed in representing cases despite clear directions
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Jan 2: Taking serious note of recent adverse orders and strictures against the Government from the courts, Chief Secretary Dr Arun Kumar Mehta has sought names of non-performing Government Counsels from all the Administrative Secretaries so that necessary action could be taken against them for not acting as per the explicit directions issued from time to time by the General Administration Department and Department of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs.
During the past few months, the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh has passed several strictures against the officers of the J&K Government on the ground that either the directives were not implemented or proper response was not filed by their Counsels. In certain cases, even cost has been imposed on the senior officers for not ensuring compliance of the directives passed on important matters and for non-furnishing of the Action Taken Report, official sources told EXCELSIOR.
“The Government and its senior officers faced embarrassment in the courts mainly because of slackness on the part of the Government Counsels in representing the cases properly despite the fact that from time to time they were explicitly told to strictly adhere to the mechanism of filing replies and response in various courts, Tribunals and Forums”, they said.
Sources disclosed that Chief Secretary Dr Arun Kumar Mehta has taken serious note of this and has accordingly asked all the Administrative Secretaries to submit the names of those counsels, who have failed to represent their cases properly resulting in passing of adverse orders against the Government, to his office. After the submission of the names of non-performing counsels, the Government in consultation with the Department of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs will take action against them.
The Government Vide Order No.777-JK(GAD) dated August 24, 2021 had issued detailed instructions regarding filing of replies and response in various courts, Tribunals and Forums by Government and Government Organizations. “With a view to ensure submission of timely, well-considered and uniform replies of the Government Departments, Head of the Departments, Organizations, Bodies and Societies before respective adjudicating forums, there is an imminent requirement to consult the Department of Law, Justice & Parliamentary Affairs for opinion and vetting of the draft replies/objections before filing the same in the courts”, read the order.
It was explicitly mentioned that in cases involving more than one department, the Department of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs shall finalize a consolidated reply and return the duly vetted consolidated reply/objections to one of the departments, to be decided by it, which shall file the timely reply on behalf of all the departments, unless there are specific directions for filing of separate replies by each department, in which case also, the replies must be vetted through Law Department to ensure coherence and consistencies with each other.
“Moreover, all the Government Counsels are supposed to cause their appearance before the courts/Tribunal in each and on every date of hearing and they were cautioned long time back against resorting to unnecessary adjournments”, sources said, adding “whenever the new Government Counsels are appointed they are explicitly told to make proper and effective representation on behalf of the Government and any laxity in this behalf shall not be condoned”.
They further said, “the Law Officers and Government Counsels, as per the standing instructions of the Government, are required to avoid seeking time for filing of counter affidavit/rejoinder and further time can only be sought in exceptional circumstances”, adding “there are also clear directions that there should not be any delay in filing of LPAs/SLPs and if in exceptional cases the application for condonation of delay is required to be filed the same should be drafted carefully and not casually, which has been noticed a number of times”.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
