Retain temporary allocations of judicial officers: Gauhati HC

GUWAHATI: Considering the issue of lack of accommodation, the Gauhati High Court has ordered that no authority should disturb the temporary allotment of allocation of the judicial officers by any authority.
Hearing a petition filed by the Registrar General of Gauhati High Court in 2006, a bench comprising chief justice (acting) N Kotiswar Singh and justice Manas Ranjan Pathak and justice Suman Shyam asked the concerned authorities not to disturb the temporary allocation of the judicial authorities as there is an acute shortfall of official quarters.
Following a previous order of the court, the registrars of the Kohima bench, Aizawl bench and Itanagar permanent bench have furnished detailed reports about the accommodation issues in the respective states at the bar.
Meanwhile, with regard to Assam, P Nayak, learned counsel appearing for the general administration department, submitted before the court that reports have been received from 11 districts and reports are awaited from remaining districts.
The court had said in its previous order that this directive will not be applicable to the districts of Lakhimpur, North Lakhimpur, Dhemaji, Morigaon, Goalpara, Kokrajhar and Baksa as there is no shortage of official accommodation.
The court granted two weeks’ time to the chief secretary of Assam to file the necessary affidavit, as directed earlier, on or before December 10. The court fixed the matter on December 14 for the next hearing.
The court has also directed the chief secretaries for the states of Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh to file their response on the basis of the reports submitted by the registrars of the respective outlying benches by the next date.
In an earlier order issued on October 19, the bench had observed that the situation in Assam is quite alarming to say the least as more than 72% of the judicial officers have not been provided official residential accommodation. The court also directed the DCs of all the districts and chief executive members of all the district councils to submit reports individually of the steps taken and proposals, if any, to deal with this issue.
The bench mentioned the Shetty Commission’s recommendations that free government accommodation should be made available to the judicial officers.