Above: Over 1.25 lakh cases are pending before the MP High Court’s principal bench in Jabalpur

With studies showing that governments are litigants in 46 percent of cases pending in all courts, Madhya Pradesh takes the lead to reduce the burden of court cases on the exchequer

~By Rakesh Dixit in Bhopal 

In 2010, the then UPA government led by Manmohan Singh unveiled a National Litigation Policy (NLP). While that has remained on the backburner since, the Madhya Pradesh government has revised its own 2011 litigation policy.  The Madhya Pradesh cabinet cleared its 2018 litigation management policy in April. A plan of action is now being prepared. “Training programmes for law officers to fortify a monitoring system of cases are on,” principal secretary, law, Satendra Kumar Singh, told India Legal.

According to the new policy, if the state government loses any case in a court, the officer responsible will have to face the music. Also, the government will desist from challenging the loss in higher courts unless deemed to be in larger public interest.

Pertinently, the Madhya Pradesh government has been losing an alarmingly large number of cases. Reasons for this include short-sightedness of bureaucrats, lack of proper monitoring of cases, delay in filing replies and affidavits in courts and paucity of competent law officers.

For instance, the state exchequer was rendered poorer by Rs 2,500 crore following contempt of the Supreme Court on four occasions in the case of giving wages to 15,000 teachers of aided schools on a par with government teachers. Although it is specified in the Service Recruitment Rules for officers and employees working with the Madhya Pradesh Public Service Commission that they will be given allowances at par with officers of the secretariat, they were denied the same. The case reached the Madhya Pradesh High Court which ruled in favour of the employees.

To avoid such embarrassment, the policy provides that in cases against the government only a joint secretary or higher ranked officer will produce affidavits or replies in high courts and the Supreme Court. A helpdesk will be set up in the offices of the advocate general and additional advocate generals to advise officers in charge of particular cases.

“The new litigation policy will supervise and conduct legal matters and constitute monitoring committees at department and district levels,” says law and legislative affairs minister Narottam Mishra. Every department will have a state and district level grievance redressal system to address complaints within eight weeks.

After the NDA government came to power, there was a plan to review NLP. In June 2015, the policy was cleared by a committee of secretaries and sent to a high-powered panel comprising Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, then Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and then Law Minister DV Sadananda Gowda. Three years have passed. The latest report from the law ministry vaguely says a new NLP is “expected shortly”.

However, several states including Madhya Pradesh have gone ahead with their respective policies based on the 2010 NLP guidelines. The NLP guidelines are aimed to reduce the burden of cases on the exchequer. Governments in states and the centre are litigants in 46 per cent of the total 3.14 crore pending cases.

According to the National Litigation Policy, an efficient litigant:

• Focusses on core issues involved in the litigation and addresses them squarely
• Manages and conducts litigation in a cohesive, coordinated and time-bound manner
• Ensures good cases are won and bad cases are not needlessly persevered with
• Is represented by competent legal persons, sensitive to the facts that the government is not an ordinary litigant and the litigation does not have to be won at any cost

A responsible litigant:

• Does not resort to litigation for the sake of litigating
• Does not take false pleas
• Ensures correct facts and all relevant documents are placed before the court
• Suppresses nothing from the court and sees that there will be no attempt to mislead it

Sources in the state law department have revealed that nearly every fifth officer or employee in Madhya Pradesh is moving court against the state government over service matters. There are 84,000 pending cases in the courts while the total number of state employees is about five lakh. With over 10,000 cases added every year, the government is losing Rs 10 crore annually. Over 2.5 lakh cases are currently pending before the three benches of Madhya Pradesh High Court—65,000 before Indore; 60,000 before Gwalior; and 1,25,000 before the principal bench in Jabalpur.

The new policy seeks to ensure availability of a competent legal officer in departments, apart from the regular cadre. The departments are empowered to engage private lawyers in important cases after consultation with the law secretary and advocate general. Also, the collector or district authority has right to appeal in cases involving government lands and properties in which an order or decision has been passed against the government. “Mandatory separate permission of the law department for review has been done away with,” Mishra said.

A provision has also been made for maximum use of arbitration to resolve disputes. Plus, an effective procedure will be set up to withdraw cases by identifying frivolous ones and ones which have become unproductive.

Immediate action will be taken against persons found guilty of negligence through constant supervision of the reasons for delay in court cases. Other measures in the offing include opening an office of the additional advocate general in New Delhi, appointment of law officers in AG office in Jabalpur, additional AG offices in Gwalior and Indore and creation of three posts for joint commissioners (litigation).