Editor,
The judiciary in Arunachal Pradesh is still in its nascent stage with severely understaffed departments like the office of the JMFC (judicial magistrate), CJM (chief judicial magistrate), and district & session courts, whose staffers are overburdened.
A close look at the judiciary system in Arunachal exposes the arbitrariness and randomness in its administration, with no centralised body to govern or regulate the transfer and posting of subordinate staffers within the districts, or to other districts.
It is seen that judges are transferred and posted at regular intervals but not the subordinate staffers. Whereas every regular government servant is eligible for transfer after a certain period of time, the judiciary in Arunachal has negated the same, either due to the lackadaisical attitude of the judicial officers or because of their ignorance.
For the last six years, there has been no transfer or posting in the courts of the state, except for a few promotional transfers. The staffers who are serving in far-flung areas like Anini, Tawang, Daporijo, Longding, Kurung Kumey, etc, are feeling the brunt of the topographical hardship, while some staffers are never transferred from comfortable areas like Yupia, Pasighat, Aalo, Ziro, Tezu, etc. It seems like gross injustice in terms of area-wise serving opportunity. Every staffer must have equal opportunity of serving in tough and easy locations.
Many subordinate staffers have left/resigned as their requests and problems were never redressed by the authority concerned, which seems incompetent in running its administrative functions. Moreover, there is very little chance of getting home posting for staffers who have been transferred and appointed before the induction of the zonal system (the sessions judge being the head of every zone) in entire Arunachal.
It is worth noting that the judiciary officers are always preoccupied with their daily listings and cases. So they generally do not have time to enquire or talk about administrative issues. Therefore, there must be a separate branch in the judiciary system which governs or regulates the transfer and posting of other administrative issues of the subordinate staffers.
The registrar of the Gauhati High Court is the most appropriate office to hold this power of transfer and posting. I would like to pray to the Arunachal/Gauhati High Court to centralise the transfer and posting of subordinate staffers in Arunachal judiciary as early as possible for the sake of justice and equality of opportunity in terms of posting to hard or easy areas.
Pape Pana,
Naharlagun