Old habits die hard. Thus goes the saying. The British gave us the administrative system essentially to suite their interests. After their departure, our administrators were very slow in bringing about necessary modifications in the rules and procedures, perhaps owning to their far less experience in comparison to British rulers. Many modifications were made with the passage of time, but there are many that have got stuck up with our bureaucratic structure. Now when we want to change them and bring about reformation to meet the needs of the people in present age, the bureaucratic structure finds it difficult to adjust to the new administrative culture.
We have a good example to explain our point of view. During the British rule and also the Dogra rule, the practice was started that an applicant was not to be trusted on the face of it and was asked to get his documents attested by a gazetted officer, who, during the British days, usually happened to be a Briton or an Indian but loyal to the Raj. This practice continued during the Dogra rule in our state and down to present day. Though British gazetted officers are no more in India now, but the colonial practice they left behind has got stuck up like a leech with the Indian official functionaries. For all purposes and most of these being of beaten path, a gazetted officer’s attestation of a document was considered necessary. For ordinary people, it became difficult and cumbersome to run after a gazetted officer or a notary who would charge for attestation. More often than not, a gazetted officer when approached by an ordinary person for attestation would make many pretexts to avoid attesting the document even if it was proper and genuine.
Sometimes in the middle of 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the decision that the practice of attestation of documents by a gazetted officer should be done away with and instead self attestation should be encouraged to make things easy for the people in general. This move was actually based on the recommendations of Second Administrative Reforms Commission which had suggested simplifying procedures for self-certification provision. The Union Government was convinced that self-attestation would be a boon for the people. Therefore, the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances of Union Government directed all the States to review the existing requirement of attaching such affidavits with various application forms and implement self-attestation of documents. J&K Governor approved the recommendation of the Central Government and on February 4, 2016 directed the Chief Secretary to move forward in implementing the instructions. Chief Secretary called a meeting of the Administrative Secretaries on March 2 and after explaining to them the necessity of implementing the instruction directed that within one week the identification of services in which self attestation could be processed be forwarded to him. There are some services where attestation of documents by a gazetted officer is mandatory and the new order would not disturb that position. But there are a large number of other services in which attestation by a gazetted officer is not mandatory; it is only a routine practice and could be done away with by asking the applicants to exercise the option of self attestation. The Administrative Secretaries have failed to submit the identified services. Without their identification implementation of the instructions cannot be possible. Identified list of services have to go to the Law Department for its clearance.
It is regrettable that the Administrative Secretaries are trivializing the instructions of higher authorities and are soft-paddling on the matter. This negative attitude goes against the interests of the people at large. When the news came that self-attestation would be introduced, people in general and student community in particular felt very happy and relieved. But their happiness was short lived because as we see, the bureaucracy is not cooperating with the policy planners. Higher authorities are not willing to invoke normal service regulation to combat deep-seated incompetence and willful slackness in implementing instructions from higher authorities. This is not the way we can expect good governance to make any impact on the administration.
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