Senior Bureaucrats Of Uttar Pradesh Govt Taking No Action, Keeping Matters Pending On Judicial Infrastructure: Allahabad High Court 7 Judges Bench

Observing that no action was being taken by Uttar Pradesh government's senior bureaucrats despite its repeated orders regarding serious issues of infrastructure in state's courts, the Allahabad High Court in a stern order has said none else than Chief Secretary will file his affidavit in the matter and a senior officer of the State will remain present in the court to assist the Advocate General whenever the case is listed.

"We may record that number of issues have been pointed to the senior bureaucrats of the State including the Chief Secretary in different meetings on the administrative side to which no satisfactory response has been received. All these issues are well within the knowledge of the State bureaucrats on which no action has been taken despite seeking time and the matters have been kept pending as a result of which there is no improvement in infrastructural facilitiies available in the Courts, besides shortage of staff," a full bench of the high court said in the order dated November 4.

The order has been passed by a full bench of Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal and Justices Pritinker Diwaker, Manoj Misra, Sunita Agarwal, Surya Prakash Kesarwani, Manoj Kumar Gupta and Anjani Kumar Mishra.

The court in the order said that despite repeated orders being passed by it and dissatisfaction having been recorded in the previous orders regarding the manner in which the officers of the State were "taking up the serious issues about infrastructure and other facilities to be provided to the High Court at Allahabad and its Bench at Lucknow and also the District Courts in the State of Uttar Pradesh", the Advocate General has not been able to dispute the fact that no concrete steps have been taken

"Even proper Nodal Officer has not been appointed as was the statement made by the then Advocate General on that date. Only the Legal Remembrancer & Principal Secretary (Law), who is a Judicial Officer, has been appointed to coordinate between the High Court and the State which, even according to the Advocate General, is not the proper officer. He submitted that the officer should not be less than the Chief Secretary who can coordinate with the Registrar General of this Court and the Government as the issues can be sorted out by a senior officer of the Government and not by a junior officer," the court said in the order.

The court further said that it was surprised to notice that though such an important matter was listed before it, none of the senior officers had come to brief the Advocate General. "Only an Additional LR, who is a Judicial Officer, was present to instruct the Advocate General," it said.

Listing the matter for hearing on November 15, the court said, "The response to various issues pointed out in the meetings on the administrative side and the previous orders passed in the present petition shall be submitted on or before the next date of hearing."

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