The Chennai bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal has moved from the seventh to the second position in the rate of disposal of cases in the last two years. It is doing its best to wipe out arrears, V. K. Bali, Chairman, Central Administrative Tribunal, said on Sunday.
K. Elango, Judicial Member, CAT-Chennai Bench, delivered Mr. Bali's message in his absence at the silver jubilee of CAT organised by the Service Bar Association (SBA) here. Despite the increase in the number of Central government institutions that are under the purview of the CAT from 35 to 100, there has been speedy disposal of cases, he noted.
Most cases were disposed of in less than a year.
Citing the developments that led to the establishment of the tribunal, C. Nagappan, Judge, Madras High Court, in his presidential address said the tribunal had been set up to relieve the load of litigation on High Courts and for public servants to be protected. “The tribunal procedure adopted is simple and informal providing easy access to government servants at much less cost and within a short time,” he said.
The CAT has survived in contrast to the Tamil Nadu Administrative Tribunal, noted V. Ramasubramanian, Judge, Madras High Court. The State tribunal began with 5,000 cases and returned around 25,000 cases to the High Court before it was abolished in 2006, whereas the percentage of pending cases before CAT is just four, he said.
P. S. Raman, advocate general of Tamil Nadu, Mohan Parasaran, additional Solicitor general of India, Supreme Court of India and L. Chandrakumar, president, Service Bar Association (SBA), also spoke on the occasion.
