Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Oct 23: The State High Court was informed today that the Government has framed policy for regularization of daily wagers, which has been taken up in today’s Cabinet meet.
This was informed by the Law Secretary to the Division Bench of Chief Justice Badar Durrez Ahmad and Justice Ali Mohammad Magrey today.
The court deferred the hearing of the case up-to October 26 so that the outcome of Cabinet meet with regard to issue of daily wagers and other allied issues be placed before the court on that date.
Court has also been informed that the Finance Secretary was also required to be present before the Court today in terms of previous direction, but he could not appear as the copy of previous order was not sent to him.
Court directed the Finance Secretary as also the Law Secretary to remain present before the court on October 26.”Personal appearance of these officials was sought on October 13 so as to apprise the court about the issue of regularization of daily wagers and additional manpower particularly with regard to e-court infrastructure”, HC directed.
Court observed to Law Secretary that these issues shall be settled as there is dire need of additional staff as e-courts have functioned now. “We want concrete results by next date”, Court observed. It may be mentioned here that with regard to regularization of daily wagers, court is seeking implementation of observations made by Supreme Court in which State Government has been held responsible for creating such situation.
“It is unfortunate in our view, that State Government has allowed the requirements of the state judiciary to be neglected over such a long period of time and the need to facilitate the proper functioning of the High Court and the district judiciary is a Constitutional necessity, which imposes a non-negotiable obligation on the State Government to create an adequate number of posts and to provide sufficient infrastructure”.
In this view, court had directed the Finance Department to take a call at the earliest and definitely before the next date of hearing. “This issue cannot look any further delay. People working as daily wagers in this institution are more than 10 years”, DB had recorded. Supreme Court, in its judgment, has said the State Government has created situation of recruiting persons on daily wage basis on large scale and has blamed the Government for the ‘unfortunate situation’, which has resulted in a large number of persons being recruited on a daily wage basis.
Earlier, court had granted final opportunity to Government to come up with the solution of daily wagers in light of Supreme Court observations and warned if the issue is not worked out then court will issue orders and today the submissions made by Law Secretary prevented the court to pass any coercive order against the Government.
Waiting for implementation of observation made by the Supreme Court for the last one and a half year with regard to absorption of daily wagers, court said as the orders of this court and observations of Supreme court have not been implemented as such court would pass ‘mandamus’ (a clear direction) in this regard.
“We made it clear that the proposal shall be processed without delay based on the e-court committee of Supreme Court. Unfortunately we find that the letter dated 11.8.2017 issued by the Assistant Legal Remembrancer (LJ&PA) displays the lack of understanding of orders of the court”, DB directed earlier.
Department’s counsel had assured the court that he will make understand the department the orders of the court correctly and immediate action is taken with regard to processing long pending issue.
Proposals for creation of various posts has already been sent to LJ&PA department by the Registrar General of High Court with a request that the proposals which are pending consideration to see the light of the day at the earliest.
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