Criticising Tamil Nadu government for its delay in filing affidavits on time with regard to cases filed against it, the Madras High Court today regretted that the law department does not even have a consolidated data of how many cases are pending before the court.
"We are informed that the law department does not even have a consolidated data of how many cases pertaining to the state government are pending before this Court. It is a perennial problem."
The first bench, comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice T S Sivagnanam, stated this after coming down on the law officer of the state government who was summoned to appear before the court for not monitoring cases related to the government and for not filing the affidavits in time.
The bench said it had summoned the officer to explain how cases filed in the HC were not monitored and why affidavits were not being filed in time.
"We have been emphasizing for a long time that a computer database should be created so as to have the complete data of pending cases, the dates listed as also the date for compliances, including filing of affidavits. If this expertise is not available with the state government, they could certainly get it from elsewhere as most of the departments in different states manage the affairs in this manner."
The Government Pleader assured the Bench he would file an affidavit explaining the procedure followed for doing so, the law department's role and how it monitors the entire thing.
During the course of the hearing, the Centre informed the Court that it had not granted funds to the state judiciary as it had not received the Funds Utilization Report from the state government, which was already sanctioned earlier. To this, the bench observed that "this is a serious matter."
The bench questioned the Government Pleader about it, to which the GP submitted that he would get instructions from government.
The bench then posted the matter to August 10, 2015 for further hearing.
