“ Though thecentral government notification intimating that Chandigarh Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) will have jurisdiction over the UT of J&K which is necessitated due to promulgation of Jammu & Kashmir Reorganization Act- 2019,nowhere mentions that it would require the affected employees to visit Chandigarh, the political parties led by NC and JKAP have begun playing politics without even reading the fine print and understanding the functioning of CAT all over the country”, lamented Brigadier Veteran Anil Gupta, Spokesperson of the Party in a press release issued here today.
What is regrettable is that both the parties have launched a motivated misinformation campaign aimed at emotional exploitation of the employees through misrepresentation of facts and even terming it as “injustice” to the employees of the erstwhile state. The plea being given is that it would cause administrative and financial hardships to the employees who would need to move now to Chandigarh for redressal of their grievances and deny them door-step justice, regretted Brig Gupta. All this is nowhere near the truth but simple spin doctoring resorted to by the leaders of these parties. One of the leaders has even gone to the extent of terming it as “travesty of justice” without even studying how the entire system works in the country with the sole aim of criticising the government order and creating dissension among the government employees by creating a fear psychosis.
There are total of 17 CAT benches located at different places having jurisdiction over 28 states and 8UTs. Number of CATs have their jurisdiction over more than one state. For instance, CAT Chandigarh has jurisdiction over Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and UTs of J&K and Ladakh; the Guwahati tribunal has jurisdiction over all NE states except Sikkim which falls under the jurisdiction of Kolkatta Bench which also has UT of Andaman and Nicobar islands under its jurisdiction. Similarly, the Mumbai bench looks after Goa and UT of Dadara, Nagar and Haveli along with the State of Maharashtra. Jabalpur bench looks after two states of MP and Chattisgarh. Himachal Pradesh also does not have a State Administrative Tribunal and all its employees depend on Chandigarh Bench.
Clarifying further, Brig Gupta explained, “Area of jurisdiction of the tribunal does not mean that all employees under the jurisdiction have to appear at the Chandigarh Bench only. The fact is that the sittings would be held at Jammu/ within UT only with no need of the employees or their counsels required to move to Chandigarh.”
Terming their statement as a “hollow propaganda”, Brig Gupta asked the opposition leaders to clarify their motive and apologise from the employees. “Where is the question of additional financial burden or denial of door-step justice or inconvenience to the employees or young job aspirants as alleged by the opposition leaders except that they are bound by their old habit of misleadingthe people to create dissension through motivated statements and petty politics by blaming the Central government to cover up their own incompetence”?
The grievances by the employees can even be registered online. BJP also has approached the Central Government for permanent benches in the UT. After abrogation of Article 370 and the reorganisation of the state, the service matters of the employees are to be heard and adjudicated upon by tribunals constituted under the Administrative Tribunal Act. Hence, all such pending cases in the Honourable High Court are being transferred to the tribunal having jurisdiction over the UT of J&K. The new system, as prevalent, in the rest of the country is employee friendly and would be beneficial to them in the long run. By de-linking the same from the High Court would also ensure speedier trial of other civil and criminal cases ensuring quicker justice to the people of UT by reducing the load of the High Court, read the press release.