*Even after SC’s nod, Secys of Judges await justice
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Oct 15: In a virtual confrontation with the judiciary, the State Cabinet has deferred a proposal of the J&K High Court regarding creation of new posts to ensure periodic inspection of sub-ordinate courts. Similarly, despite approval of the Apex Court of the country, the Secretaries of the Chief Justice and Judges of the High Court have been clamoring for justice from the State Government during the past several years.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that the Department of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs had placed two proposals before the State Cabinet, which met under the chairmanship of Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti yesterday evening. One proposal was pertaining to creation of posts exclusively for inspection of subordinate courts after regular intervals and second was about implementation of judgment of Supreme Court as well as Division Bench of State High Court.
However, both these proposals failed to receive the approval of the State Cabinet despite the fact that all the concerned departments have already put their weight behind the clearance of the same, sources regretted, adding “the stand taken by the Cabinet has clearly sent a message that State Government has entered into confrontation with the judiciary”.
Elaborating further, sources said that in the year 2004-05, the Registrar General of the J&K High Court with the approval of the then Chief Justice had recommended to the Department of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs creation of 32 posts so as to lay exclusive focus on inspection of subordinate courts.
After analyzing the proposal, the Department of Law and Justice took up the same with the Finance and Planning Departments for their concurrence as creation of posts involved financial implications albeit of not huge scale. Since then the file remained shuttling between Finance, Law and Planning Departments on one pretext or the other.
Finally, after obtaining the concurrence from Finance and Planning departments, the Department of Law prepared a Cabinet memorandum and submitted the same to the General Administration Department for placement before the highest decision making body of the State, sources said, adding the proposal came up for discussion in the Cabinet meeting held yesterday.
However, the proposal was deferred on unknown grounds despite the fact that it was pertaining to creation of mere 32 posts in the State High Court, which included two posts each of Registrar Inspection and Joint Registrar Inspection and other supporting staff. The objective behind creation of these posts is to facilitate the High Court in periodic inspections of district courts and subsequent initiation of corrective steps on various aspects.
When contacted, Minister for Law and Justice, Abdul Haq Khan, while confirming that proposal has been deferred by the Cabinet, refused to divulge the reasons behind the same. He, however, said, “some more clearances are required and we will obtain the same shortly…such things happen following deliberations in the Cabinet”.
“This clearly establishes that creation of posts, which remained priority for the High Court is a non-issue for the State Cabinet that too after lapse of more than a decade”, sources remarked.
Similarly, State High Court in the month of December 2014 had held the Secretaries of Chief Justice and Judges entitled to grades equivalent to the KAS officers as per the provisions of SRO-386 of 2008 dated December 1, 2008.
The High Court, while quoting the provisions of KAS Rules, had asked for creation of posts of Special Secretaries and Additional Secretaries to provide justice to the Secretaries of Chief Justice and Judges. However, the judgment of the Single Judge was challenged in the Division Bench by the State Government but failed to get any reprieve.
The State even knocked the doors of the Supreme Court against the judgment of J&K High Court but the Apex Court too upheld the decision with the direction to the State to implement the same. However, the State again adopted dilly-dallying tactics instead of honoring the judgments of High Court as well as Apex Court prompting the Secretaries of Chief Justice and Judges of the High Court to file contempt petition.
While hearing the contempt petition, Division Bench of State High Court in the recent past issued notices to the Chief Secretary as well as Finance Secretary for the personal appearance for not implementing the directions despite lapse of considerable period of time. However, to avoid appearance of these top bureaucrats, Law Department moved an application seeking four weeks time with the submission that proposal vis-à-vis creation of two posts of Special Secretaries and three posts of Additional Secretaries to provide justice to Secretaries of Chief Justices and Judges will be placed before the Cabinet shortly.
However, the proposal was not cleared by the State Cabinet despite being aware of the fact that same has already been approved by the highest court of the country, sources said, adding “now it is to be seen what action the Division Bench takes on the issue following expiry of time granted to the State”.
“All this clearly indicates that the priorities of the High Court and its judgments don’t carry any importance for the State Cabinet”, sources remarked.
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