Jammu: Minister for Law and Justice Abdul Haq today reiterated that the government is forcefully defending JK’s stated position on Article 35A and other such litigations pending in the courts.
Winding up the discussion on the Demand for Grants of Law and allied Departments in the Legislative Assembly, Minister said the department has hired the services of a battery of senior most advocates of the country including Fali S Nariman, Shekhar Naphade, Rakesh Dwivedi and KV Viswanathan to vigorously pursue these litigations and put across the State’s position.
While outlining the road map to fine tune the justice system in the state, he said the government has constituted a committee to identify and weed out some of the frivolous litigations that will ensure timely deliverance of justice in the state.
Enumerating the measures taken by the Law Department during the past 3 years to fine-tune the delivery of justice, the Minister said that the government will shun the practice of carrying on law suits, which, due to lack of legal merit, have little to no chance of being won. He said this leads to denial of justice to the aggrieved persons, by dragging them in the courts unnecessarily.
He said the Committee has been mandated to review the State cases and the Law departments have been directed to place the cases before the Committee which are not worth contesting. This will decrease the burden of unnecessary litigation on the State so that focused attention is given to the cases which are worth contesting
He said the government is taking steps to reduce the pendency of cases in various courts in the state. He said he is personally monitoring the status of some of the important cases and also calling review meetings to discuss the status of various other cases. He said he has been impressed upon the law officers that they should take every possible steps for protection of State interests in the Court and that the interim directions which have effect of stalling development works should be immediately got vacated.
Minister said during the current financial year 9603 cases were disposed off in the JK High Court including 8137 criminal cases while 78496 cases were disposed off in subordinate cases including 22050 cases.
