New Delhi: The Supreme Court Thursday dismissed a petition seeking enactment of a state litigation policy by every state establishing fair accountability mechanisms, providing for consequences for violation of the policy and factoring in a periodic impact assessment programme.
The order comes at a time when Odisha government is planning to reframe the state litigation policy. The advocate general of the state and the Law department secretary had had a meeting with the advocate on records, representing Odisha government in Supreme Court and other lawyers representing the state in various tribunals here to seek their views on reframing the state litigation policy.
A two-judge bench of Justice Madan B Lokur and Justice Deepak Gupta refused to entertain the petition filed by Advocate Sibo Sankar Mishra seeking direction to the state governments and Union government to frame practically feasible litigation policies.
“We can’t pass any direction to the state governments,” observed the bench.
The petitioner had prayed that if a state litigation policy is already framed by a state government then specific modalities must be prescribed for its immediate and successful implementation alongside affixing precise responsibility for its violation.
To reduce the backlog, the petitioner prayed that a high power committee comprising secretaries of Law, Finance and the concerned departments should scrutinise every case before filing in any constitutional court.
The petitioner also mentioned that about 50 per cent of the cases pending before the High Courts and the Supreme Court are filed by the Union government and state governments. He also cited 126th report of the Law Commission which states that government litigations has contributed to judicial backlog, thus adversely affecting justice delivery in India.