Moa Jamir
A staggering 99% of the court cases in Nagaland are against the government, Gauhati High Court Judge & Executive Chairman, Nagaland State Legal Services Authority (NSLSA) Justice Songkhupchung Serto reportedly told a group of law students recently. One of the possible reasons he observed was that the “bureaucrats commit mistakes because of the lack of knowledge on the law.”
For a keen follower of proceedings of the Kohima HC Bench, the cogent observation is not surprising; instead, one can assert that the Judge was being lenient in his diagnosis. Besides, the lack of legal awareness, it can be hypothesised that more concerning occurrences are the regular ‘defiance’ of judicial orders as well as alleged ‘delaying tactics,’ particularly related with Public Interest Litigation (PIL) and Writ Petition. It appears to be continuing with impunity.
Among others, most writ petitions as well as PILs are prayers for directions to the concerned departments or the State Government, for rectification or act on something which the petitioners argue, has been violated or not carried out. Needless to say, the petitioners approach the Court as the ‘last resort.’ Many a time, the cases linger due to delay in submission of 'affidavit-in-opposition' by the State respondents, as recently alleged regarding a PIL filed by the Chakhesang Public Organisation (CPO).
In addition, many ongoing cases are contempt petitions against the State respondents for failure to act on the direction given by the Court earlier. The ongoing contempt petitions filed by the All Nagaland Judicial Ministerial Staff and Village Guard Association of Nagaland are two prominent examples.
According to GHC Kohima Bench’s website, in 2021, a total of 13 such cases were filed while 20 were disposed off. In 2022, till May 25, a total of 13 such petitions were filed. All the cases had the State of Nagaland or its Departments as respondents, either individually or together. The same goes for writ petitions. Alarmingly, there are cases of petitioners approaching the Court more than once as the State respondents failed to act on the former’s directions.
In such a state of affairs, regular chidings and directions, as noted earlier in this column, have become the norm, not the exception. Such interventions by the Court, at times, act as a ‘stupor’ for the State Government to act. The judgment on the Nagaland Staff Selection Board as well as the pending PILs on Health Sector and the ongoing National Highway-29 four-lane project (Suo Moto) are prominent cases, in which the Court had to intervene, due to apparent failures of the government machinery.
As such, the ramification of the hypothesis stated earlier can be found in two statements cited nearly a century apart by two legal luminaries, but still related and topical.
The first is the observation by the Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, who reportedly told a joint conference of Chief Justices and Chief Ministers on April 30 that the “sheer defiance’ of governments towards judicial pronouncements, their inclination to pass off the responsibility of decision-making to courts and the legislature’s ambiguity, lack of foresight and public consultation before making laws had led to docket explosion.”
The consequences of Ramana’s observation can be found in Justice Louis Brandeis, once an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who in 1928 opined: “Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen...”
“In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperilled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our (or A) government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example... If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man (woman) to become a law unto himself (or herself); it invites anarchy.” Such a state of affairs is verifiable in Nagaland.
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