What Karnataka High Court ordered to ensure implementation of court orders by State

The Karnataka High Court on Monday directed the State government to consider creating a “cell in each government department” that will receive court orders and ensure their time-bound implementation..A Bench of Chief Justice NV Anjaria and KV Aravind said that the ultimate purpose of these cells should be to reduce contempt litigation.“In fact, essentially what we want is creation of a kind of cell in each of the government department which will receive the orders of the Court, assess the directions, and ensure their time bound implementation to reduce the inflow of contempt petitions. That is what we want and we want directions to be issued on these lines. That is the only idea of this suo motu,” the Court said..The Court was hearing a suo motu petition that it had initiated in April this year after taking note of the many pending contempt of court cases initiated against the State government and its agencies for not implementing court orders.At the time, the Court had observed that the State’s failure to implement its directions sent a wrong message to the public. It would seem as if the courts were losing their authority and their orders did not have any effect on the government, the High Court had said..On Monday, the State government told the Court that there was already an Act in place to ensure time-bound implementation of court orders across the State. The State filed an affidavit saying that the 2023 Karnataka Conduct of Government Litigation Act provided for deputy commissioners to take stock of pending court orders, their assessment and implementation etc.However, Advocate Madhukar Deshpande, the amicus curiae appointed in the matter, told the Court that the 2023 Act will not cover the issue in the present petition. While Section 73(4) of such Act makes the deputy commissioner in charge of all departments, just one officer cannot deal with all departments, Deshpande said. “Ideally, as the Court has suggested, all departments should have a cell,” he said..The Court then directed the State to think of a suitable mechanism.“Because even simple orders of deciding representations are not attended to, for one year and one and a half year. You (State) must be getting several decrees from civil courts also. We want a cell in each department that should attend all pending orders until the case reaches the logical end. Work out on that line,” the High Court said.The matter will be heard further on August 22.