The rhetoric galore by the state leadership and the bureaucracy from time to time that there should be a process of quick delivery of justice, does not appear to be matching with the existing infrastructure , primarily that of the manpower – the Law Officers resulting in an avoidable unending legal delays in our state. This puts the already resources crunch faced by the state to further strains and pressures, besides discontentment and even a sense of cynicism among those, who seek to get justice from the courts especially in cases lodged against the state.
In the context of the number of litigations against the state having increased manifold and the plaintiffs expecting quicker decisions in a reasonable time, the constraints of the acute shortage of manpower to deal with these cases are resulting in inordinate delays. The question, as a natural corollary, is about what keeps the Government from resolving the matter and arrange increasing the manpower? Why does the Government afford to reap the ill will from the litigants as being insensitive to their aspirations to get justice, especially when the respondent is the State Government itself or any of its administrative wings? Both the wings of the High Court are having the number of Law Officers, not commensurate with the number of litigations. This scenario results in a tremendous pressure on the existing scant number of the legal personnel, which becomes the main cause of delays caused in filing of timely response from the Government.
The Government has a sanctioned strength of a total of 24 Law Officers to deal with the cases concerning the state or any of its departments or functionaries. Of this 14 Law Officers have been posted in Srinagar and the remaining 10 at Jammu. The number comprises 10 Additional Advocates General, 8 Deputy Advocates General, and 6 Government Advocates besides one Advocate General. Ostensibly, periodic review or appraisal of the status of the pending cases and reasons thereof must not be forming the tenets of the Government policy with intent to ensure timely, if not speedily, disposal of the cases. It seems prosaic that the Government in its own interests, does not seem to act to remove the causes of delay, chiefly due to non availability of the minimum required Law Officers. It needs to be seen in the context of the fact that during the past some years, the litigations against the state continue to spiral because of various reasons but the state of inertia continues to operate as regards appointment of the need based minimum number of Law Officers. State Government is expected to pitch in their efforts sooner than later, to avoid disenchantment from the plaintiffs, nursing some sort of apathy or injustice somewhere having been meted out to them from the state or any of its offices, departments etc.
With an aim to bring about the much desired resolution of the matter, the Advocate General, Mohammad Ishaq Qadri had approached the Law Department for increasing the number of Law Officers by creating 10 more posts so that equal number of officers could be deputed in both the wings of the High Court for conducting of the cases, filed against the state or against any of its functionaries. After perusal of the proposal of the AG, the Law Department took up the case with the Finance Department. However, so far, the Finance Department reportedly has not reverted to the Law Department resulting in the avoidable delays especially in responding to the PILs effectively and timely by the Law Officers. But how come can the existing Law Officers do it in absence of providing to them additional helping hands? The Government needs to be assertive in exhibiting performance and accelerating the process of decisions making, especially in judicial matters, as after exhausting all avenues, does one approach and pin hopes in judicial system for seeking justice. Mere rhetoric cannot be afforded to be the substitute of doing things practically.
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