Conference on government litigation resolves to improve pleadings in courts, settle depts' divergent views

New Delhi: A brainstorming session involving over two dozen Union secretaries and top law officers on Saturday resolved to improve pleadings in courts and resolve divergent stands by central departments as part of efforts to reduce cases in which the central government is a party.

The national conference of Union secretaries and law officers on "Efficient and Effective Management of Government Litigation" focussed on litigation scenario across four major themes: service, pension and employment matters; infrastructure, compensation and contractual disputes; fiscal, taxation and revenue cases; and regulatory, enforcement and compliance-driven litigation.

Participants noted key challenges such as repetitive service litigation due to non-uniform implementation of legal position, lack of due consultation before filing counter affidavits, divergent positions taken by different ministries, lack of coordination between departments and panel counsels, and a tendency to file appeals as a default reaction rather than as a considered policy decision.


On matters related to infrastructure and compensation, concerns were raised about escalating land compensation litigation and mounting interest liabilities, routine challenges to arbitral awards, technical complexity in infrastructure contracts leading to inadequate legal vetting, fragmented coordination between technical divisions and legal teams, and underutilisation of ADR and pre-litigation mediation.

A central emphasis of the deliberations was on reducing avoidable litigation and delays in litigation filing through robust filtering, better coordination and early dispute resolution.

The conference recommended clear appeal-filtering criteria in service and other matters, nomination of a designated officer in each department for coordinated handling of litigation, and mechanisms for time-bound implementation of court judgments so that repetitive and contempt litigation is minimised.

The law ministry, in February last year, told the Rajya Sabha that the central government is a party in nearly seven lakh cases pending across courts, with the finance ministry alone being one of the litigants in nearly two lakh cases.

Citing data available on the Legal Information Management & Briefing System (LIMBS), Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal said, "There are about seven lakh cases pending where the Government of India is a party. Out of these, in about 1.9 lakh cases, the Ministry of Finance is mentioned as a party."