Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Sept 10: In what could be termed as testimony of half-hearted approach towards the implementation of important plans, Government has failed to appoint District Litigation Officers during the past over two years despite the fact that posting of these officers was imperative to carry the affects of the State Litigation Policy to the gross root level. Due to this, the objective of reducing the Government litigation in the courts could not be fully achieved till date.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that in order to manage and conduct litigation in a cohesive, coordinated and time bound manner and to ensure that good cases are won and bad cases are not needlessly persevered with, the State Cabinet on August 19, 2011 accorded sanction to the State Litigation Policy in consultation with Home, General Administration and Finance Departments.
The another objective behind framing the policy on the analogy of the National Litigation Policy was to get the financial assistance earmarked by the 13th Finance Commission for the Jammu and Kashmir to be utilized for bringing down pendency of litigations in the courts, sources further said.
Under the State Litigation Policy, which came in to force vide Government Order No.2486-LD(A) of 2011 dated August 24, 2011 issued by Department of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, the Government had to appoint District Litigation Officers of the rank of Under Secretary in order to carry the affects of the policy to gross root level.
The appointment of District Litigation Officers was imperative as the litigation against State in districts goes un-noticed and sometimes it has heavy financial implications. The appointment/posting of District Litigation Officers was further important in order to have close liaison with nodal officers posted by the Administrative Departments for their district officers besides getting day-to-day information of State Litigation in districts and tehsils, sources said.
“Soon after issuing formal order on August 14, 2011 the Department of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs wrote to the Finance Department for getting its concurrence for appointment of District Litigation Officers in a phased manner but astonishingly Finance Department’s clearance is awaited till date despite the lapse of more than two years”, sources regretted.
In response to a question, sources said, “the issue of inordinate delay in giving concurrence was taken up with the Finance Department a number of times during the past two years but till date no headway could be made”. “Due to non-appointment of District Litigation Officers, the objective of the policy could not be fully achieved as these officers are an important link in the chain of bringing down number of litigations”, they added.
It is pertinent to mention here that the National Consultation for Strengthening the Judiciary towards Reducing Pendency and Delays held on October 24 and 25, 2009 had adopted a resolution to frame a National Litigation Policy with a view to ensuring conduct of responsible litigation by the Central Government and similar policies to be evolved by the State Governments.
“State Litigation Policy is mainly aimed at focussing on the core issues involved in the litigation and addressing them squarely, managing and conducting litigation in a cohesive, coordinated and time-bound manner and ensuring that litigation will not be resorted to for the sake of litigating”, sources said.
“Moreover, the purpose of policy is to reduce the Government litigation in courts so that valuable court time is spent in resolving other pending cases and to reduce average pendency time from 15 years to 3 years”, they added.
Sources further said, “it is an undisputed fact that Government and its various agencies are major litigants in courts and other legal fora. The litigation against State has increased manifold. Therefore, the need of the hour is to take this increase in litigation against State seriously, because State interests especially financial interests when become target of litigation hit hard the society as a whole”.
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