Threat of losing nearly Rs 12 cr looms large over J&K

Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Dec 24: As there is no end to the deadlock between State High Court and Public Service Commission over the appointment of Court Managers, prospect of losing Rs 12 crore provided under the 13th Finance Commission is looming large over Jammu and Kashmir. Not only this, even the objective of enhancing the efficiency of court management and resultant improvement in disposal of cases will not be achieved despite having the immense importance of the same.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that deadlock continued to persist between State High Court and the Public Service Commission despite repeated attempts by the Law Department to end the same to pave the way for appointment of Court Managers in the State Judiciary.
The appointment of 24 Court Managers was recommended by the 13th Finance Commission with a view to enhance the efficiency of court management and resultant improvement in disposal of cases. The main ground behind this recommendation was that Court Managers with MBA degrees would support the Judges to perform administrative duties thereby enabling the Judges to devote more time to their judicial functions.
“As both High Court and Public Service Commission are not ready to budge from their respective stands, the Law Minister, Mir Saifullah few months back decided to convene meeting between the PSC Secretary and Registrar General of the High Court but every time the meeting had to be cancelled due to one or the other reason”, sources said.
They informed that keeping in view the stance adopted by both High Court and Public Service Commission the Law Department has now lost hope of prevailing impasse coming to an end in future. “Even if a meeting is convened between the representatives of High Court and Public Service Commission in near future no positive outcome will emerge as both the sides have formally put question mark on the stance adopted by each other on the appointment of Court Managers”, sources added.
“Keeping in view the prevailing situation, threat of losing an assistance of Rs 11.96 crore provided under the 13th Finance Commission is looming large over Jammu and Kashmir”, they said, adding “this amount would have to be incurred on the salary component of the Court Managers during the 13th Finance Commission award period. Ironically, not even a single penny could be utilized till date”.
When contacted, Law Secretary, Mohd Ashraf Mir confirmed that deadlock between High Court and Public Service Commission over the appointment of Court Managers continued to persist. “Certainly, the financial assistance will get lapsed if not utilized for the purpose it was earmarked for”, he said in response to a question.
The process of making selection of 24 Court Managers as recommended by the 13th Finance Commission was set in motion in February last year when the Public Service Commission vide Notification No.03-PSC of 2012 dated February 24, 2012 advertised 24 posts of Court Managers. Thereafter, the interviews of the short listed candidates were conducted and on the basis of performance in the interviews coupled with the weight-age in respect of academic merit and other related parameters, the selection was made. Accordingly, the list was forwarded to the High Court for issuance of appointment orders.
However, the High Court observed that the selection of the Court Managers was not made strictly in accordance with the laid down norms and sent the list back to the Public Service Commission. The PSC while responding to the decision of the High Court mentioned that since these are the managerial posts no expert from the High Court was required. The PSC even mentioned that experts from different parts of the country were invited to conduct interview as such there was no illegality.
After going through the reply of the PSC, Chief Justice of State High Court constituted two judges committee to have detailed appraisal of the entire exercise conducted by PSC and the committee rejected the selection list for being made in violation of Clause-II of Rule 10 of Jammu and Kashmir Civil Services (Judicial) Rules, 1967. The committee even asked the Law Department to get fresh interviews conducted from the PSC by formally approaching the Chief Justice with the request to nominate a Judge as an expert in the interviews.
However, the PSC responded that the issue was placed before the full Commission and it was unanimously decided that there was no need for fresh exercise as no illegality of any sort was conducted in the selection process.

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