Judicial pay panel looking into non-judicial staff grievances

By B.K.Vittal

BANGALORE, APRIL 14. The First National Judicial Pay Commission has initiated steps in preparation for the study of the service conditions of non-judicial staff throughout the country, though it is yet to hear from the Centre, which had agreed to enlarge the terms of reference of the Commission to cover this aspect.

There are nearly 2.5 lakh non-judicial staff working in 98 cadres in the States and Union Territories, the number of cadres varying from State to State, the maximum being in Maharashtra and minimum in States such as Mizoram.

While the staff has multiple grievances, the common grievance of all the cadres is the lack of promotional opportunities, with employees in many States retiring from the same post in which they entered service. The Commission, headed by Mr. K. Jagannatha Shetty, a retired judge of the Supreme Court, was first set up to restructure the multiple cadres of the subordinate judicial officers into three uniform cadres in each State and Union Territory with uniform pay-scales, service conditions and the like. It submitted its report in November last.

It is now going into the service conditions of the non-judicial staff on the strength of a Supreme Court order on a petition by the All-India Judicial Employees' Confederation for referring its case to the commission.

The Government, which was reluctant to the idea of enlarging the scope of the Commission, was asked by the court to continue the commission till a report was made to it regarding the service conditions of the court staff of all States and Union Territories.

The Commission has now started issuing a memorandum and questionnaire on the service conditions of the court staff. It has already appointed IIT, New Delhi, as management consultant for a scientific study of the problems of courts and grievances of the staff. Management experts in the institute have already commenced field work by interacting with the court staff. In its memorandum, the Commission has pointed out that the present strength of the staff in courts is insufficient and this is responsible for the delay in administration of justice and also for creeping corruption.

There is evidence that whenever the High Court asks for additional staff to deal with the large number of pending cases, the response of the Government is inadequate.

The memorandum has also referred to the existence of different forums in different States for recruitment of ministerial personnel of courts and felt there is great delay in selection and appointment of court staff by external authorities apart from the selection of unsuitable candidates. The delay causes dislocation of court work. To avoid this, it may be necessary to examine if the district judge and the High Court could be empowered to make recruitment to all the cadres in court staff.

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