Himachal Pradesh High Court
Heera Devi @ Ram Dei vs . State Of H. P. & Ors. on 28 September, 2022
Bench: Tarlok Singh Chauhan, Virender Singh
Heera Devi @ Ram Dei vs. State of H. P. & Ors.
CWP No. 3810 of 2022 28.09.2022 Present: Mr. Mohar Singh, Advocate, for the petitioner.
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Mr. Rajinder Dogra, Sr. Addl. A.G., with Mr. Vinod Thakur, Mr. Shiv Pal Manhans, Addl. A.Gs., Mr. Bhupinder Thakur, Dy. A.G. and Mr. Rajat Chauhan, Law Officer, for respondents-State.
The instant petition was filed on 04.04.2022 with an advance copy to the respondents-State. Thereafter, a formal notice was issued on 13.07.2022 granting six weeks' time to the respondents-State to file reply. The reply was not filed within the stipulated time and accordingly when the matter came up on 24.08.2022, we directed the listing of the matter for today with the hope and trust that the respondents-
State would have filed the reply.
2. It is surprising that even today the respondents-
State have not filed the reply. It has been around six months, since when the respondents-State have knowledge regarding the pendency of this case and non-filing of reply would only indicate that either the respondents-State are not serious or have excessive work load making it difficult to cope with the work pressure.
3. We would again reiterate that this Court has repeated experience with the Department of Education, be it Higher Education or Elementary Education, that the reply(ies) in the cases are never filed within the time stipulated and the same only came on record after the Court has resorted to coercive methods.
::: Downloaded on - 29/09/2022 20:02:44 :::CIS -2-4. It is high time that the Department of Education employs adequate number of law officers so as to ensure that .
the Court work does not suffer solely on account of non-filing of the reply(ies) or other pleadings.
5. Accordingly, the Chief Secretary to the Government of Himachal Pradesh is directed to look into the issue and after taking into consideration the pendency of cases with both the Directorates of Higher Education and Elementary Education, if found necessary, issue directions for appointing Additional Law Officers.
6. This entire exercise be completed within four weeks.
7. List on 02.11.2022. In the meanwhile, reply be also filed.
(Tarlok Singh Chauhan) Judge (Virender Singh) Judge September 28, 2022 (Sanjeev) ::: Downloaded on - 29/09/2022 20:02:44 :::CIS