Law Minister Moily says trivial matters should not be brought before Administrative Tribunals

NEW DELHI - Union Law and Justice Minister Dr. M. Veerappa Moily on Saturday called upon for the change of attitude in administrative governance to ensure that unnecessary and trivial service matters are not brought before the Tribunals and Courts.

“We need to devise mechanism where the problems of the employees are sorted out in the administrative set up itself. To sort out these issues, we need to do ‘out of the box thinking’. The accountability, performance and output of the employees must be judged while handling their cases,” he said speaking at the inaugural session of the All India Conference of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), which began here today.

Senior Supreme Court Judge Justice Altamas Kabir inaugurated the Conference, which is being held in the Silver Jubilee year of the CAT.

In his inaugural address, Justice Altamas Kabir applauded the Central Administrative Tribunal for disposing of the cases before it expeditiously and also commended it for the fact that the higher courts have upheld most of its judgments.

Minister of State for Personnel, P.G. and Pensions, V. Narayanasamy, was also present at the inaugural ceremony of the Conference, which was presided over by Dr Moily,

The inaugural session was followed by in house discussion on the agenda items raised by the members. The session was chaired by CAT Chairman V.K. Bali.

Speaking on the occasion, V. Narayanasamy said that the pendency in the Tribunal is substantially low and the time period to dispose of cases is much less compared to higher courts.

“The Government is seriously thinking of ways and means to bring within the jurisdiction of the Central Administrative Tribunal many more Central Government organizations and institutions. So far, we have brought 191 organizations within the ambit of the CAT, so that more Government employees would be in a position to get speedy justice for their grievances,” said Narayanasamy.

“If we can fulfill the infrastructure needs of CAT, even the PSUs and Public Sector Banking Institutions could be covered. He asked the CAT officials to send a proposal to Planning Commission stipulating their infrastructural needs and assured that his Ministry would make efforts to ensure that CAT’s requirements in this regard are fully met,” he added.

Narayanasamy further said that the historic RTI Act, 2005, has brought great transparency in governance, and added that we are taking further steps to improve RTI law to strengthen it to increase public disclosure, so that most of the information except national security and personal privacy related information would be in public domain.

In his keynote address, Justice G.S. Singhvi, Judge, Supreme Court of India, emphasized on reforms in the Public Services Commissions of the States and said that persons of impeccable integrity should be holding positions in such Boards.

“The Government must ensure that the matters like gratuity and pension etc are resolved in-house and such matters should not reach the Tribunals or the Courts,” he said and called for evolving departmental mechanism, which can address the employees’ grievances and thus help reducing burden of courts in service matters.

CAT Chairman Justice V.K. Bali said that the about 200 institutions/organizations have been notified resulting in manifold increase in the work of the various Benches of the CAT.

“But despite quantitative increase in the work, the Tribunals across the country have kept pace with disposal,” he added.

Justice Bali informed that at the Principal Bench, the disposal rate is 100 percent.

“On an average, 91 percent cases of the Principal Bench have been upheld in the High Court and the position with regard to other Benches not much different. The Tribunal has performed well quantitatively and qualitatively,” he said.

The Administrative Tribunals in India were set up in 1985 and function from 17 Benches across the country. These Tribunals are unique in the sense that the members of these Tribunals are both from the Administrative as well as Judicial side. Each division bench comprises of a judicial and administrative member. (ANI)