19,000 cases pending against TN departments in HC; Counter yet to be filed in 13,000 cases

CHENNAI:

The Court Case Monitoring System (CCMS), an IT-based application, to monitor cases pending against the state government department or officials have revealed that a total of nearly 19,000 court cases are still pending in High Court.

The CCMS, which was created after after more than 20,000 contempt of court petitions were pending against Tamil Nadu government officials in Madras High Court and Madurai Bench between the year 2010 to February 16, 2014, reveals that of the 19,000 cases, the counters have yet to be filed in 13,000 cases.

School education department and transport department have the maximum number of pending cases under CCMS. The school department has around 2,957 pending cases of which counter has yet to be filed in 1,590 cases. Similarly, transport department has a total of 2,292 pending cases of which counter application has not been filed by the department in 2,146 cases.

However, CCMS did not take into record the backdated cases that were pending prior to the petition filed by K K Ramesh, managing trustee of Madurai-based Tamil Nadu Centre for Public Interest Litigation, said sources.

The Housing Department and Urban Development department has only 751 pending cases of which no counter has been filed in 175 cases. This despite the fact that Madras High Court rapped Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority, which also comes under the housing department, for the huge backlog of cases that are pending in the courts.

According to a recent audit report, more than 8,000 cases pertaining to CMDA are pending in various courts, including Madras High Court from the year 2000 onwards. Most of the cases pertain to service matters, unauthorised constructions, land acquisitions, CMDA project related cases and writ petitions.

According to CCMS data, the Home, Prohibition and Excise Department has 1,338 pending cases in Madras High Court while Municipal Administration and Water Supply department has 1,237 pending cases. Similarly, the finance and health departments have 1,214 and 1,188 pending cases before the courts respectively.

Factfile:

Agriculture dept:

Writ petitions: 485

Writ appeal: 9

SLP: 2

Review of SLP: 0

Environment and Forest Dept:

Writ petitions: 475

Writ appeal: 0

SLP: 1

Review of SLP: 0

Finance Dept:

Writ petitions: 1214

Writ appeal: 1

SLP: 0

Review of SLP: 21

Health and Family Welfare:

Writ petitions: 1188

Writ appeal: 11

SLP:  1

Review of SLP: 0

Home, Prohibition and Excise:

Writ petitions: 1338

Writ appeal: 0

SLP:  0

Review of SLP: 0

Municipal Admin and Water supply:

Writ petitions: 1237

Writ appeal: 0

SLP: 1

Review of SLP: 0

School Education:

Writ petitions: 2920

Writ appeal: 37

SLP: 0

Review of SLP: 0

Transport Dept:

Writ petitions: 2292

Writ appeal: 0

SLP: 0

Review of SLP: 0