CHENNAI: Are the state government departments monitoring the pending cases? The number of pending cases in which counter affidavits have not been filed by the departments has gone up from 2,063 to 3,350 cases in the last two months, sparking a concern from the chief secretary.
It is learnt that at a high-level meeting held recently, the chief secretary observed that many departments including School Education, Municipal Administration and Water Supply, Health and Family Welfare,
Home, Housing, Revenue and Higher Education, had a pendency of over 100 cases. Interestingly, at the time of the earlier meeting, the number of pending cases had gone up from 2,063 to 3,116. Sources said this was due to integration of court cases with those of government pleader’s office.
This comes as the state is planning mechanism to monitor the pending cases in courts through the National Informatics Commission (NIC) which is extending the software application to the entire state. Currently, Court Case Monitoring System, the web-enabled system, collects information on court cases of all departments in the secretariat only.
During the high-level meeting it was also observed that seven contempt cases were still pending for want of filing counter affidavits. Top officials were asked to take action in filing the counter affidavits and following up on the cases.
It is learnt that many state departments have convened a meeting to cut down on pending cases. The Housing department, which alone has a total of 184 cases pending for which counter affidavit has yet to be filed, has asked officials to file counter affidavits at the earliest.
Meanwhile, efforts are on to enter the pending cases in the Supreme Court in the software so that the status of pending cases will be reviewed by secretaries of departments.
Sources said there are more than 1,000 cases pending before the Supreme Court and while efforts are on to dispose of them, the state is finding a major challenge in clearing the pending bills of legal counsel hired by it. It is learnt that the chief secretary has urged all secretaries to follow up on the pending fee bills and settle them at the earliest.