Separate Department Of Justice From Home Ministry: House Panel

New Delhi, Jun 1 (UNI) With a 30 million pendency shaking the people's faith in the judicial system, a parliamentary oversight panel has re-emphasised delinking the Department of Justice from the Home Affairs Ministry and creating a separate department with a full fledged secretary of justice.

The advice came from the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances and Law and Justice in its latest Report on the Demands for Grants 2006-07 of the Ministry of Law and Justice.

The Committee recalled advice to ''set right the anomaly'' repeatedly held out by the sister Committee on Home Affairs since 1995.

Among key functions the Justice department carries out are judges' appointment, resignation and removal.

The Committee says the rationale behind keeping the Department of Justice under the administrative control of the Home Secretary might have been logical initially.

''But the situation has gone sea change,'' the Report says, pointing out that the Department of Justice has been assigned a distinct task under the Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules, 1961.

It says the Department ''has been performing sensitive functions pertaining to judiciary and the administration of justice.'' ''Seen in this context and also of the fact that there are about three crore cases pending in different courts thus shaking the faith of the people in the judicial system, it would be more appropriate if the Department is accorded a distinct identity including strong administrative structure of its own.

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