Need to curb unwanted appeals as default reaction: Law ministry

A tendency among Central Ministries and Departments to file appeals against court orders as a “default reaction” rather than as a considered policy decision was flagged as a “key challenge” to curb litigation in which the Government is a party. At a recent conference on effective and efficient management of Government litigation, over two dozen Union Secretaries and top law officers recommended a clear appeal-filtering criteria in service and other matters, nomination of a designated officer in each department for coordinated handling of litigation, and mechanisms for time-bound implementation of court judgments so that repetitive and contempt litigation is minimised.

The conference, organised here on Saturday by the Union Law Ministry, noted key challenges such as repetitive service litigation due to non-uniform implementation of legal position, lack of due consultation before filing counter affidavits, divergent positions taken by different ministries, lack of coordination between departments and panel counsels, and a tendency to file appeals as a default reaction rather than as a considered policy decision.

According to officials and details shared by the Ministry, in infrastructure and compensation matters, concerns were raised about escalating land compensation litigation and mounting interest liabilities, routine challenges to arbitral awards, technical complexity in infrastructure contracts leading to inadequate legal vetting.

Fragmented coordination between technical divisions and legal teams, and under-utilisation of alternate dispute resolution and pre-litigation mediation were also flagged as areas of concern.

A central emphasis of the deliberations was on reducing avoidable litigation and delays in litigation filing through robust filtering, better coordination and early dispute resolution.

The Law Ministry had, in February last year, told the Rajya Sabha that the Central Government is a party in nearly seven lakh cases pending across courts, with the Finance Ministry alone being one of the litigants in nearly two lakh cases.

Citing data available on the Legal Information Management & Briefing System (LIMBS), Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal said, “There are about seven lakh cases pending where the Government of India is a party. Out of these, in about 1.9 lakh cases, the Ministry of Finance is mentioned as a party.”