The lawyers affiliated to the State Administrative Tribunal (SAT) here boycotted courts on Thursday in protest against the State Government’s proposal to close the tribunal. Many State Government employees also oppose the move, saying the tribunal is an efficient forum for early redress of their grievances pertaining to service matters within a timeframe.
The State Cabinet on Wednesday took a decision to abolish the SAT on the ground that the tribunal, set up in 1986, has not been able to achieve its desired goal. With its principal bench at Bhubaneswar, the tribunal is functioning from its permanent and regular bench at Cuttack and circuit benches at Sambalpur and Brahmapur.
Ever since its inception about three decades ago, nearly three lakh original applications, transferred applications and miscellaneous cases have been filed in different benches of the SAT, and over 2.5 lakh cases have been disposed of. While announcing the Cabinet decision on Wednesday, the Chief Secretary informed that more than 54,000 cases were pending disposal in the SAT by the end of last year.
It is argued by the State Government that following a Supreme Court decision of 1997, the SATs had lost its significance. The apex court had refused to entertain any petition challenging the decision of the SAT if the petitioner had not appealed against the tribunal’s decision at their respective High Courts. Since the HCs have become the first appellant authorities, the tribunals have become redundant, the Government argued stating that many State Governments have already abolished their tribunals since long.
But the Odisha Government’s decision to abolish the SAT is certainly going to face many challenges as the benches of the tribunals here are functioning very smoothly with its full sanctioned strength of Chairman and Members, both judicial and administrative. Even the disposal rate of cases by the benches is also very encouraging, said a newly-elected executive member of the SAT Bar Association here on Thursday.