TS HC criticises Union Government for its failure to fill up vacancies in railway

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Wednesday sharply criticised the Union Government for its failure to fill the vacancies in the Railway Claims Tribunal in Secunderabad for a long time.

A division bench of Justice Rajashekar Reddy and Justice Vinod Kumar said the government was not only being negligent in not filling the posts but also hampering the functioning of the judicial system.

The bench was dealing with a PIL filed by the Railway claims tribunal advocates association represented by its president K Sudhakar. The association complained to the court that the central government was not appointing the vice-chairman and judicial members in the Railway Claims Tribunal here for an unjustifiably long time.

The bench lamented that the central government could as well abolish the tribunals in the country if it was not interested in filling up these vacancies. It said several posts are lying vacant not only in the Railway Claims Tribunals but also in every other like the GST Tribunal. “More than 50 per cent posts are lying vacant. What is the problem in filling up the vacancies on time," Justice Rajashekar Reddy asked the central government.

The bench said, “You are not allowing people to approach the civil courts as tribunals have been constituted. If you are not helping the tribunals function properly, you better abolish these tribunals and allow civil courts to do the work. Let the people approach the civil courts. Neither are you filling up the vacancies nor allowing the people to get alternate legal remedies. This is nothing but causing delay in justice dispensation.”