National Litigation Policy yet to make any progress after three years
26 Dec, 2013
The National Litigation Policy was announced in June, 2010 with the objective of reducing pendency of cases and keeping a check on the litigation by the government. In most of the cases pending in the court, the government is one of the litigants. The National Litigation Policy called upon the government departments not to file appeals in service matters relating to an individual’s grievance or if the matter does not set a precedent.
In July 2012, an application was filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act by Kantilal Bafana, the former Secretary-General of the All-India Census Employees Association to find out what had become of the National Litigation Policy. The Central Agency Section and the Department of Legal Affairs did not respond to the RTI application and transferred the request to the Law Ministry. However, in September 2013, the Law Ministry, following an order by the Central Information Commission that the RTI application filed by Mr. Bafana could not be traced as the file was not found.
Now, the Department of Legal Affairs has informed that no other circulars have been issued on the subject and the said policy is not yet approved by the Government. This implies that the policy announced by the former Law Minister, Veerappa Moily three years ago has not made any progress till date.