The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), which adjudicates recruitment and service related cases, is functioning at half its sanctioned strength, as 31 of the 66 sanctioned posts of members are lying vacant.
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This, a parliamentary standing committee said, is leading to mounting backlog of cases. “The committee is constrained to observe that even after 30 years of its establishment, CAT lacks human as well as physical infrastructure. Because of this, 14 of the 17 Benches are not fully functional,” the committee said in its report tabled in Parliament on Thursday.
The tribunal responded that as on December 31, 2017, it had a backlog of 47,270 cases. Since its inception in 1985 to December, 2017 a total of 7,63,519 cases had been instituted, of which 7,16,249 cases have been disposed of. The disposal percentage comes to 93.80%, which it said was a success.
The committee headed by BJP lawmaker Bhupender Yadav, however, suggested strict timelines to fill the vacancies. It suggested that the appointment process of tribunal members should start well in advance and the government should examine the reasons for members leaving service prematurely and take remedial measures. The committee recommended that the Department of Personnel and Training and CAT should sit together to chalk out strategy to overcome the procedural hurdles in commencement of construction of buildings for Benches at three locations.
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Seven Benches of CAT do not have their own buildings and the three Benches for which land has been acquired, construction is yet to begin due to purely procedural reasons, the committee noted.
It pointed out that despite allocation of funds, CAT was not carrying out construction at these sites.
The tribunal replied that plots for construction of office buildings of Guwahati, Jabalpur and Lucknow Benches have already been purchased and construction will start soon after the administrative and procedural formalities are completed.
While the Bengaluru and Patna Benches have been provided office accommodation by the respective State governments, the remaining two Benches, Chennai and Mumbai, are at present working in the rented buildings.