Srinagar March 22: “Citing judicial propriety” the J&K High Court today avoided to proceed against two senior bureaucrats who evaded presence before the court in a case related to regularization of the services of daily-wagers working in the state judiciary.
The High Court had in the past week directed the Commissioner-Secretaries Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs and the Finance departments, to appear in person to explain the reasons of failure on implementing the court directions with regard to daily-wagers and sanction of posts for functioning of e-courts.
“The officers are not present and no exemption in anticipation of their appearance is sought which reflects not only the non-seriousness of the authorities towards the orders of the court but also of their confidence in derailing the process by filing an SLP before the Supreme Court,” a division bench of the court said today.
“We would have proceeded against both the officers by framing Rule against them, but the judicial proprietary demands that we may wait for the outcome of the SLP,” the judges said adding “till next date consideration of the matter, as such, is deferred”.
The state counsel, M. I. Dar, had earlier submitted that the state respondents have filed the Special Leave Petition (SLP) against the orders of the High Court passed on 7th March, 2018, and 15th March, 2018 respectively.
He informed the court that the SLP has come up for consideration before the apex court on 20th March, 2018, and the matter has been ordered to be listed again on 23rd of this March.
The High Court meanwhile took note of the non-payment of the bills of the contractors who have completed the construction of the District Court Complex, Mominabad, Srinagar.
“Secretary to the Government, Law Department, shall ensure release of the payment to the contractors in accordance with the approval accorded,” directed the court and listed the matter for further hearing on April 02, 2018.
The High Court in its order dated July 03, 2017, after taking note of the Supreme Court’s strong observations regarding daily-wagers reiterated the need to facilitate proper functioning of the High Court and the District Judiciary is a constitutional necessity which imposes a non-negotiable obligation on the State government to create an adequate number of posts and to provide sufficient infrastructure.
It had directed the Finance and the Law departments to take a final call on the matter at the earliest and directed the personal appearance of the Commissioners Secretaries of these two important departments of the State government.
