‘Country’s future depends on civil servants’

Stating that the future of the country depends on the civil servants, acting Chief Justice of the High Court of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana Ramesh Ranganathan called upon them to work for the downtrodden and the poor.

Speaking at the Civil Services Day organised by the A.P. Human Resources Development Institute at Bapatla, Justice Ranganathan said that the wealth had remained with a few people, while millions were still languishing in poverty.

“The civil servants are the steel frame of this country. They have to work effectively and efficiently for the welfare of marginalised people. They are given quasi-judicial powers and have to act sternly against misappropriation of funds and pilferage of grains under public distribution system,’’ Justice Ranganathan said.

Stating that the pendency of cases remained the biggest concern, he said out of more than 10 lakh cases pending in the courts in the State, 3.8 lakh cases were in the High Court alone.

Quality of drafting

“Another matter which is of grave concern is the rapid decline in the quality of legislative drafting, which is inviting lot of litigation. The Central and State governments are major litigants in many cases. Judicial review is exercised by High Courts. The number of contempt cases is increasing day by day,’’ Justice Ranganathan said.

Director General of the Institute D. Chakrapani, who presided over the programme, said the institute had conducted 312 training programmes covering 22,000 government officers in the last two-and-a-half years. He said regional centres were also started at Visakhapatnam and Srikalahasti.

Principal Secretary Srikanth Nagulapalli, former special chief secretary V. Bhaskar, Human Rights activist G. Haragopal, former scientist I Suryanarayana and Forum for Better Bapatla secretary P.C Saibabu and others spoke on the occasion.