Southern States - Tamil Nadu   

Misunderstanding behind encroachment of power: CJ

By A. Subramani

CHENNAI MARCH 31 . The First Bench of the Madras High Court has decided to settle the contentious issue of whether a Government can ever impose a ban on the recruitment of judicial or judicial-ministerial staff.

"We will decide if there can be a ban at all," said the Chief Justice B. Subhashan Reddy, before reserving orders on a taken-up writ petition filed by the Registrar-General of the Court, seeking adequate judicial and non-judicial appointments in the judiciary.

On the Advocate-General, N.R. Chandran's submission that the job freeze — which is in force in the State since December 2001 — was a policy decision, Mr. Justice Reddy asked, "if you have taken a policy decision that you would not abdicate your powers, how would I abdicate my duties?"

Reiterating his demand for exempting the judiciary from the general recruitment ban, he said: "You have power over the education, police and medical departments. But the judiciary is not part of the Government. We speak only through the Constitution. We are keen on retaining the power conferred on us by the Constitution... (But) This type of encroachment of power is due to misunderstanding of powers". In this regard, he pointed out that a district judge had to write to the District Collector seeking to spare the services of office assistants, and asked: "Why should my district judge write to the Collector?"

The Chief Justice also took exception to a curt response from an official in the Secretariat rejecting the demands from the higher judiciary. "The Registrar-General wrote to you (Government) after a Full Court resolution was passed. But your official says `rejected'. That is the respect you give for the High Court".

Diversion of surplus staff

Earlier, the Advocate-General filed a counter-affidavit stating that the Government was willing to fill all vacancies in the judicial-ministerial cadre by `diversion of surplus staff in various Government departments'. According to the counter, the A.M. Swaminathan Committee identified 1,844 junior assistants, 524 steno-typists and 1,359 typists as excess staff.

In view of the surplus and the less than that of the demand in the judiciary, the staff diversion would solve the problem it said, adding: "(Hence) The ban regarding filling up vacancies need not be lifted and the question need not be gone into".

It also stated that the Government Order notifying 37 vacancies of district munsifs would be reconsidered and enhanced to 61. The Registrar-General, K. Jayaraman, however, pointed out that the existing number of vacancies was 114.

The counter-affidavit also said the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission, which was handling the district munsif recruitment at present, desired that the existing system continued.

More so because at the interview stage High Court judges are invited to participate in the assessment of candidates. It added that the Government would amend a condition in the notification prescribing four-year bar experience for aspirants.

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