HC raps Home Ministry for its casual approach

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 7

In a judgment that will change the way the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) accords approvals to issues relating to Chandigarh, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that the MHA and even the Ministry of Finance were obligated to respond promptly.

Rapping the MHA for its casual approach and keeping a matter pending for nearly five months, the High Court also made it clear that the delay called for suitable action against senior functionaries.

“The administrative compulsion of the UT Administration to seek prior approval from the ministries of Home and Finance must always be attended to by these ministries with the desired sense of responsibility and they are obligated to give their response promptly, particularly in a matter emanating from judicial proceedings,” the Bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice AB Chaudhari asserted.

The development took place during the hearing of a petition filed by the UT and another petitioner against Kesar Singh and other respondents. The Administration, through its Finance Secretary and the DPI (Schools), had challenged two orders passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal in a service matter. The tribunal had summoned officers for their failure to comply with time-bound directions issued by it in December 2007 even though the same were upheld by the High Court in September 2015. 

Counsel for the petitioners referred to the opinion of the UT Finance Department that the court directions were to be complied with “after obtaining the approval of the MHA...”

Taking up the matter, the Bench asserted that “such like condition” was totally uncalled for in a case where the authorities were required to comply with the court directions.

“The MHA, or for that matter even the Ministry of Finance, cannot be allowed to sit over the judicial verdict,” the Bench asserted.

The Bench added: “The casual approach, as it appears, adopted by the MHA, which kept the matter pending for more than four and a half months, warrants appropriate suitable  action against senior functionaries of the ministry also”.   The Bench went on to grant the UT Finance Secretary the liberty to apprise the tribunal of the nomenclature of the officers in the MHA responsible for stalling the implementation of the court orders, which had attained finality. 

  “We request the tribunal to initiate appropriate proceedings against those officers of the MHA as well. The tribunal may, thereafter, determine whether there is a deliberate and wilful disobedience of the court orders on the part of the Finance Secretary and other officers of the UT Administration or such fault lies with the Government of India”.

  Disposing of the matter, the Bench added that there could be no second opinion that the tribunal rightly summoned “the officer(s) for their failure to comply with the time-bound directions issued by it”.