HC notices to Punjab over restructuring of RTS body

THE Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday issued notices to Punjab and the secretary of the state's Right to Service Commission on a public interest litigation seeking restructuring of the Right to Service body.

Petitioner, advocate H C Arora, submitted that the restructuring was necessary to effectively utilise the services of the RTS body's chief commissioner, four other commissioners and the supporting staff. In his PIL, the petitioner has alleged that the Punjab Right to Service Commission has an annual budget of around Rs 6.75 crore, of which more than 2.51 crore is spent on salaries for the chief commissioner, four other commissioners and supporting staff.

The PIL states that the Commission, however, does not have any business, so much so that during the last year, the Commissioner received only seven revision petitions for consideration. The petitioner, therefore, alleged that the huge amount of tax paye's' money spent on running this Commission is going down the drain every year.

Referring to a Supreme Court judgment, the petitioner submitted that the Apex Court had issued directions to the Centre that before presenting any Bill in the State Assembly/Parliament, the government should conduct ` 'Judicial Impact Assessme't' to ascertain the workload that the proposed Act is going to introduce - the number of courts, judges required, and the expenditure on running the new set up. The Punjab government, however, has not conducted any suc` 'judicial impact assessme't' before introducing the Punjab Right to Service Act, 2011 in the state Assembly.

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