CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court has expressed disappointment over the response of the Central government to the vacancy in the post of presiding officer (PO) of Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT), Odisha in Cuttack.
The DRT was established for the banks and the financial institutions in the State at Cuttack in 2001 for adjudication of the dispute between the banks and the borrowers, where the subject matter of dispute is more than Rs 10 lakh.
The tenure of the last incumbent PO ended on February 2, 2021. The post has since remained vacant without even an in-charge PO. Ranjan Kumar Rout, a lawyer of the Orissa High Court, filed a PIL seeking court’s intervention for filling up the vacancy. Acting on it, the court had directed the Central government to immediately make alternate arrangements till the process of appointment of the PO of DRT on a regular basis takes place on December 6 last year.
The Director Department of Financial Services (DFS), Ministry of Finance filed an affidavit on Wednesday.
Director DFS Ashok Kumar Dogra stated in the affidavit that the appointment of the presiding officer has not been made yet and is pending approval of the appointment committee of the Cabinet. The alternative arrangement in respect of handing over the charge of the DRT, Cuttack to some other presiding officer could not be made due to non-availability of the alternative bench within Odisha, Dogra said in the affidavit.
The court was disappointed as on the previous occasions, alternative charge was handed over first to the presiding officer, Visakhapatnam and then to the PO, DRT, Kolkata even when there was no alternative bench within Odisha.
The division bench of Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice R K Pattanaik said, “The court fails to understand why this time round even an alternative charge cannot be handed over, given the mounting cases in Odisha.”