Jehangir Ali 
Srinagar: The J&K high court has observed that a “sorry state of affairs” prevailed in the Union territory as the administration acted “consistently with utter contempt” for the judiciary and the judicial system had become a “cruel joke”.
A bench of Justices Javid Iqbal Wani and Atul Sreedharan made the remarks on August 5, which marked the fifth anniversary of the reading down of Article 370, while hearing a contempt petition against J&K chief secretary among four senior administration officials.
J&K’s finance secretary Santosh D. Vaidya and secretary of public works department Bhupinder Kumar joined the contempt proceedings through video conferencing while the state told the court that the secretary of the general administration department was on leave.
The court’s comments come after two senior administration officials gave two contradictory answers to justify the absence of the chief secretary (CS) from the proceedings. While J&K’s advocate general D.C. Raina blamed it on “connectivity issues”, law secretary Achal Sethi, who appeared through video conferencing, told the court that the CS was “busy in a meeting”.
“As of now, this court is unable to ascertain as to who is lying. Both these versions are starkly disparate and in gross contradiction to each other,” the court observed, adding that the situation reflected a “shocking scenario where the executive is ignoring the orders passed by this court consistently with utter disdain, cocky that this court shall take no measures imperilling their liberty for their disobedience.”
The observation came in a petition challenging the pay disparity in two senior ranks in J&K’s public works department where the chief engineer and senior engineer are reported to be drawing equal salary, despite the former being of higher rank.
In an order on August 10 last year, the court ruled that “chief engineer being a higher post than the superintending engineer” was “legally entitled to higher pay scale”.
Citing a government order [Number 22-JK(GAD)] dated June 1, 2023, the high court held the chief engineer can’t be “placed at the same pay scale and at par with the superintending engineer.”
“Conferring same pay scales to two posts of different hierarchy certainly would violate Article 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India,” the court observed, asking the administration to end the disparity.
On August 5, when the case came up for hearing, the state told the court that it had filed a writ petition against the judgement in the Supreme Court.
However, citing the apex court’s website, the court observed that the petition was filed on June 25 this year (Diary Number: 27885/2024), 10 months after the order was passed and four months after J&K administration granted sanction to challenge it.
“There are (still) seven defects identified by the Registry of the Supreme Court but not a single one has been cleared till date i.e., two months after filing the Special Leave Petition. From the manner in which the Union Territory government has conducted itself, it is clear that there is an absolute lack of sincerity of purpose on its part to comply with the order passed by this court,” the HC bench observed.
The court said that 6,000 contempt petitions were pending and the litigants were “unable to savour the benefit of these orders” while observing that the “inordinate” delay in compliance of court orders suggested that “the very existence of this court is meaningless”.
“A few of these contempt matters are pending between 10-15 years and the cases pending between one to five years are the ones that run into thousands and has reduced the justice dispensation system in the UT to a cruel joke,” the bench observed
The bench continued: “This environment has come to exist on account of the excessive latitude being shown by this court, time and again, only to maintain a harmonious relationship between the judiciary and the executive.”
“The ‘couldn’t care less’ attitude of the executive gives an impression to this court that it has to resort to firm measures to ensure that the orders passed by this court and by other courts judicially inferior to the high court, are complied with in letter and spirit and are taken more seriously than the way it has been till date,” the court said.
The court warned of “precipitate measures” to “restore a semblance of sanity” in the administration of justice. “[The court] is, however, recording these observations herein so that the UT and the bureaucracy is put on guard that what has been happening till now with the orders of this court shall no longer be tolerated,” the court observed, while listing the matter for August 8.
The court ordered the four officers to appear “in person” on the next hearing, “If any of them does not comply with the direction for personal appearance, this court shall resort to coercive measures to secure their presence.”
The remarks came at a time when the judiciary and the administration are locked in a battle over the contempt proceedings against a senior Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer and deputy commissioner of Ganderbal district, Shyambir Singh, who has been accused of harassing a judge over a judicial matter.
On August 2, the high court summoned the IAS officer, observing, “Any attempt by him to avoid service of summons or his non-appearance shall be viewed seriously by this court and the court shall resort to coercive proceedings to secure his presence,” a high court bench ruled.
However, the matter was later listed on August 12.