Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, May 22: Notwithstanding clearly spelt out provisions in the State Litigation Policy, the State Government is pushing its employees to endless litigation.
One of such instance came to the fore in a writ filed by Iftikhar Hussain, who successfully participated in Combined Services Competitive Examination in 1995 and was allotted J&K Accounts (Gazetted) Service.
However, he was aggrieved over the allotment of Accounts Service, which figured at Serial No.10 in the order of preference indicated by him in his application. He submitted before the court that having regard to his merit position, he deserved to be allotted J&K Administrative Service.
On his writ petition, the High Court quashed the order No.515-GAD of 2000 dated May 8, 2000 to the extent it pertained to the petitioner and respondents were directed to reexamine the issue of allocation of service in respect of petitioner and three respondents.
However, the State aggrieved with the writ court judgment came up with LPA. Even the private respondents in the writ petition filed LPAs against the judgment. Both the appeals were disposed of on December 23, 2009 giving liberty to the petitioner to make representation to the State Government within one month and further direction upon the State to decide the representation within a period of three months.
In compliance to the judgment, the petitioner made a representation detailing his grievance to the State Government within one month of the date of judgment. But the respondents failed to take any decision.
“The Chief Secretary appears to have slept over the matter for six long years. The mode and manner in which the representation has been dealt with prima-facie indicates gross negligence on part of Commissioner Secretary, GAD”, Division Bench comprising Justice Hasnain Massodi and Justice Janak Raj Kotwal said.
“The conduct of Chief Secretary runs against the State Litigation Policy, whereunder the Government employees are not to be pushed to endless litigation”, the DB said, adding “this is a fit case where respondents may be asked to pay compensation to the petitioner for delay in taking decision”.
“However, we in the first instance find it appropriate to give two weeks last and final opportunity to the Commissioner Secretary GAD to take a decision on the representation filed by the petitioner and convey the decision taken so that petitioner is in a position to work out the remedies, if cause arises”, the DB said and sought compliance report before next date of hearing.
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