CPM too opposes scrapping of administrative tribunal

Shimla, Jul 14 (UNI) On the heels of Congress' opposition to the scrapping of the HP Administrative Tribunal, the CPM has also opposed the government's decision saying it was just an exercise to fulfil its political objectives.

''The BJP had scrapped the tribunal, which had stayed thousands of transfers of the state government employees, just to fulfill its political objectives of transferring thousands of government employees on political grounds,'' party state secretary Rakesh Singha said in a statement after the meeting of the party secretariat here.

Since the HP State Administrative Tribunal became instrumental in staying these unjustified transfers, the government resorted to its scrapping against its promise in the election manifesto wherein it had promised to set up permanent tribunal benches at Dharamshala and Mandi, he said.

Mr Singha said that as against the BJP's ''misinformation campaign'' that a large number of cases were pending with the tribunal, only 24,000 cases were pending with it as of now.

The tribunal had registered 1,42,559 cases in all since its inception in 1986, he said and added that 1,18,892 cases had been disposed off till now.

The CPM leader said besides the disposal of cases in the tribunal was relatively higher during the last three years, despite the fact that a number of posts in the tribunal remained vacant for a long time.

The scrapping of the tribunal would affect the state government employees as they would have to pay a higher fee for approaching the High Court, he said.

Mr Singha said the government's decision was also against the basic spirit of the recommendations of the Parliamentary Committee on Personnel, Law and Justice Administrative Tribunals.

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