SSRB, PSC too in dock for delaying recruitments
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, May 9: Notwithstanding oft-repeated official statements mentioning that the steps are being initiated to ensure that Government does not become a compulsive litigant, the litigations against the State and its various organs are burgeoning mainly because of non-implementation of State Litigation Policy, which was formulated about four years back to check this trend.
On the analogy of mechanism developed at the national level, the State Government in the month of November 2011 formulated a State Litigation Policy with the sole objective of bringing down litigations against the State and its various agencies considerably by adopting various measures.
This policy was welcomed by one and all because an impression was given that by strictly implementing this policy the litigations against the State would be checked up to large extent and this policy would be a beacon-light for unnecessary perusal of the bad cases.
In this policy, thrust was laid on examining each writ petition/civil suit against Government before contesting the same in the court of law; appointment of Law Officers by strictly following laid down criterion; checking tendency of seeking adjournments by Government lawyers, which result in weakening of Government cases; filing of appeals against ex-parte and interim orders only in extreme circumstances; vacation of stay orders and periodic review of pending cases. Moreover, the State Litigation Policy states that Government departments must decide the matters administratively without intervention of court.
But all these objectives of State Litigation Policy could not be achieved till date because no serious attention was paid towards implementation of this policy by timely initiating the necessary steps, official sources regretted. “Expect in the official statements during the previous Coalition Government and present regime, the policy doesn’t figure anywhere on ground and the Government and its various organs continue to be major litigants in courts”, they added.
In order to carry out the affects of State Litigation Policy to gross root level, District Litigation Officers were required to be appointed by the Law Department as the litigation against State in districts generally goes unnoticed and sometimes it has heavy financial implications. However, not even one district is having District Litigation Officer although posts for all the 22 districts of the State were created with the approval of the Cabinet based on the concurrence received from the Finance and Planning Departments, sources said.
Since these 22 posts were required to be filled by promotion and direct recruitment on 50:50 basis, the Law Department ordered promotion of 11 Legal Assistants to the posts of Law Officers and forwarded 11 other posts of District Litigation Officers and other ranks to the Public Service Commission and Service Selection Recruitment Board for making appointments, sources said.
“Neither the promoted officers have been posted against the posts of District Litigation Officers till date nor Public Service Commission and Service Selection Recruitment Board have filled up the referred posts thereby creating hurdles in implementation of the State Litigation Policy”, sources regretted and questioned what was the fun of formulating the policy when it was not to be implemented.
They further said: “It seems the policy was formulated just for making reference of in the official statements otherwise four years is too long a period for implementation of any policy, which has greater role to play in checking that the Government doesn’t become compulsive litigant, reduce financial burden on the State exchequer in fighting unnecessary cases and above all bringing down burden of cases in the courts”.
Those at the helm of affairs in the State should have scolded the PSC and SSRB for prolonging filling up of the posts and at the same time should have appointed promoted officers against the posts of District Litigation Officers by giving them charge of adjoining districts so that implementation of policy could have marked beginning, sources said.
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