fiogf49gjkf0d
The Supreme Court has abruptly replaced an internal mechanism to weed out wasteful government appeals with a think tank.
In more than one-third of the litigation in India’s Courts, the government is a party. In criminal cases, it cannot be avoided. According to one estimate, the government is involved in 10 million cases. No wonder, the Union Law Minister and Attorney General have described the government as a ‘compulsive’ litigant.
Some Supreme Court Judges also echoed this sentiment, in stronger terms. They criticised the government for resorting to prolonged litigation on ‘trivial’ issues, and pointed out that not only did this waste the judiciary’s time but also caused the public exchequer a ‘colossal’ loss.
While unveiling a tantalising vision statement last year, the Law Minister recognised the problem and promised to turn the government from a ‘compulsive to a responsible and reluctant litigant’. The government proposed to entrust the task of weeding out senseless litigation from the government’s docket to top law officers — the Attorney General and the Solicitor General. They now have a full-fledged office in central Delhi, assisted by 52 lawyers and 26 law researchers. Statistics on pending matters have been called from government departments including public sector undertakings.
Attorney General G. E. Vahanvati has also commented on the government’s unhealthy urge to litigate. “It cannot be denied that government has become a compulsive litigant. There are several reasons for this. The Law Commission identified various reasons why the government became an irresponsible litigant. It said that in most cases, government litigated because of the utter indifference on the part of civil servants,” he said at recent conference. “Sometimes, the government pursued litigation as a matter of prestige, with an attitude of vengeance. In several cases, the officials had an attitude of arrogance and a superiority complex in litigating. It is easy to file a case in Court and leave it to the Courts to decide. One obvious reason to do so is to avoid the necessity of taking decisions, some of which can be awkward.”
Meanwhile, a five-Judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court last week scrapped a scheme under which state-run enterprises had to resolve their disputes through an internal mechanism. In its judgment in the case, (‘ONGC cases’) in 1995, 2004 and 2007, the government set up a committee to settle the disputes so that they did not rush to the Court.
