Public Administration Mains 2018 : Model Question and Answer - 69
(Public Administration Paper II / Chapter: Civil Services)
(Current Based) Question: What do you mean by government litigation and its possible solutions? (20 Marks/250 Words)
Model Answer:
According to the Ministry of Law and Justice, government departments are a party to around “46 percent” of court cases. A misconception regarding government litigation is that the government itself is a source of all cases involving the government. The analysis of petitions filed against the state at various levels of governance shows that a multi-pronged approach needs to be adopted to tackle the issue of “government litigation”.
Possible Solutions :
(a) Writ petitions filed under service and labour classifications : The state must put in place robust internal dispute resolution mechanisms within each department which inspire confidence in its workers as a means of addressing their grievances against the management.
(b) Land acquisition matters : Mostly filed to challenge orders passed by quasi-judicial authorities on grounds of a violation of principles of natural justice. To reduce the incidence of such writ petitions, the state must either ensure that quasi-judicial authorities are judicially trained or create a separate class of judicial officers to discharge quasi-judicial functions.
(c) The policies aimed at addressing the supply-side issues of government litigations are found to be lacking in data, research and analysis.
(d) Needed an implementable action plan to ensure that citizens are not forced to file cases against the government and its agencies in the first place. This require a relook at the functioning of litigation-prone departments and formulating solutions unique to each department. (Total Words- 231)
Valuable inputs from The Hindu Opinion: ‘Tackling Government Litigation’ by Deepika Kinhal
(Linkages: Government Litigation and Multi-Ponged Approach, Government Litigation and Internal Dispute Resolution Mechanism, Government Litigation and Quasi- Judicial Officers)