IN RE Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) During the course of adjudication of different matters, this Court noticed that appropriate endorsements are not made on postal articles, which were being returned to the High Court without being duly served. Therefore, an order was issued on 06.12.2018 by the Chief Justice requiring the registration of this public interest litigation as a taken up matter with the intention to have requisite streamlining of matters in relation to service of notice through the institutions called Post Offices falling under the Indian Post Office Act, 1898. The said order reads as follows:

(2.) It appears that on being notified of the contents of the aforesaid order, the Chief Postmaster General, Telangana Circle, took up the responsibility of addressing the issues by holding reviews with the officers in the light of the Central Government Counsel's opinion, which was also sought for. Resultantly, the Chief Postmaster General has addressed all the Postmasters General on 15.12.2018, issuing instructions for strict compliance. We have gone through the said communication, which is placed on record as Annexure - R2. It reads as follows:

(3.) In view of the aforenoted material, we see that the Chief Postmaster General, and the team of officials under his command have identified the bottlenecks and are on the way forward to liquidate them. We are satisfied that the Chief Postmaster General and the Postmasters General under his command are not only conscious of the problems and their enormity, but have also traced for themselves, the modalities to face the situations noticed. They have shown the vigour to ensure that the process needs to be streamlined in terms of what is contained in the letter dated 15.12.2018, referred to above. That process ought to be a continuing one, so that there will be regulation and performance audit of officials as has been found required by the Chief Postmaster General. Therefore, we record the contents of the letter dated 15.12.2018 issued by the Chief Postmaster General to the Postmasters General and direct all the officials concerned to follow, in letter and spirit, the directions given by the Chief Postmaster General which are hereby incorporated as directions of this Court through this judicial order. The directions issued by the Chief Postmaster General shall be, thus, effectuated except at the peril of such official, who is noticed by the Chief Postmaster General to have erred in obeying the commands contained therein. It is so ordered.