CHANDIGARH:The
Supreme Court has fined the ministry of defence (
MoD) Rs 1 lakh for the second time in about a month for unnecessary litigation in cases that were already settled.
A division bench of Justice Madan B Lokur and Justice Deepak Gupta passed the orders on Wednesday while dismissing a bunch of appeals by the ministry in a case related to pay and pensionary benefits of veterans from the lower ranks. The judges said that the ministry’s “couldn’t care less and insouciant (casual lack of concern) attitude has gone a little too far”.
Observing that the ministry was pursuing frivolous and infructuous appeals against the National Litigation Policy, the bench said that “if the Union of India cares little for the justice delivery system, it should at least display some concern for litigants, many of whom have to spend a small fortune in litigating in the SC.”
The issue was related to the implementation of the revised pay structure of pay bands and grade pay, as well as pension and revised rates of allowances of the personnel below officers’ rank.
The ministry’s appeal on a similar issued was dismissed by the SC in March. Even at that time the SC had fined it Rs 1lakh for unnecessarily approaching the court for an already settled issue.
SC: Union of India engaged 10 lawyers for a settled issue
In its order on Wednesday, the bench observed that Union of India had engaged 10 lawyers for an already settled issue, including an additional solicitor general and a senior advocate and created a “huge financial liability” by asking “taxpayers to bear an avoidable financial burden for the misadventure.”
The Supreme Court went on to observe that it hoped that “someday some sense, if not better sense, will prevail on Union of India with regard to formulation of a realistic and meaningful National Litigation Policy”.
“The website of the Department of Justice shows that the National Litigation Policy, 2010, is being reviewed and formulation of the National Litigation Policy, 2015, is under consideration. When this will be finalized is anybody’s guess. There is also an Action Plan to Reduce Government Litigation which was formulated on June 13, 2017. Nothing has been finalized by the Union of India for the last almost about eight years and under the garb of ease of doing business, the judiciary is being asked to reform. The boot is really on the other leg,” observed the Supreme Court.
