Days after J&K High Court Chief Justice Gita Mittal had publicly shared the contents of a letter asking the Centre to establish special benches of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) in Srinagar and Jammu, CAT Chairman Justice L. Narasimha Reddy on Saturday not only denied having received any formal communication on the subject but also took strong objection to the manner in which the correspondence had been made public.
“I contacted Union Minister of State Dr. Jitendra Singh about the subject but he has not received the letter either in the form of a hard copy or through e-mail,” Justice Reddy said in a statement issued in New Delhi.
“The letter happens to be the communication between its author and the addressee and it is not made public particularly when it is between highly placed dignitaries,” he added .
In a statement issued through the J&K information department recently, Justice Mittal had revealed that she had written to Dr. Singh and sought the establishment of a CAT with multiple benches, with permanent seats at Jammu and Srinagar.
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“With the enforcement of J&K Re-organization Act, 2019, some 31,641 pending service matters have to be transferred from both the wings of the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir to the administrative tribunals and in absence of any infrastructure or registry for operationalising the functioning of the Tribunal in J&K and only a single circuit bench of the Chandigarh Bench of the Tribunal would be hopelessly insufficient to provide efficacious dispensation to the disputants in service matters in the UT of J&K as well as in Ladakh,” the Chief Justice had written.
Justice Reddy said, “It appears that the Chief Justice expressed concern over the ability of the tribunal to handle the service matters of the Union Territory as and when transferred. Comparative statements were also furnished as regards the pendency in the entire Tribunal on one hand and pendency of service matters in the High Court on the other hand.”
“I may mention that the pendency of the cases in the circuit benches at Srinagar and Jammu before the State was re-organised was just 140. The circuit benches used to be held periodically. Last year I conducted one hearing along with an administrative member at Srinagar and Jammu. The hearing took place in a room of 8 by 10 feet size in a corner of the office of the Deputy Commissioner. Even a Second Class Judicial Magistrate’s Court would not function in such premises.”
Justice Reddy remarked that the situation in Jammu was slightly better. “Repeated requests made to the State government for accommodation did not yield any positive result. After re-organisation of the State of Jammu & Kashmir, the request for accommodation was considered and offer of the places was also made. Before any tangible steps could be taken, the COVID-19 lockdown has occurred. One cannot expect full-fledged functioning of the benches of the tribunal straight away particularly when the cases are yet to be transferred from the High Court,” Justice Reddy said.
The tribunal has 33 benches across the country. “Depending on the pendency before each bench and the need to establish benches at various places, adjustments are taking place from time to time. Once the accommodation is made available and cases are transferred from the High Court, it would be the responsibility of the tribunal to take care of the situation,” Justice Reddy said.
He also observed that if 31,000 service matters were pending before the High Court and the litigants were waiting for several years, it was not due to any lapse on the part of the Tribunal. “The establishment of benches at various places and to ensure disposal of the cases is the responsibility of the tribunal and the High Court need not be so apprehensive,” he added.
