The Kashmir University’s legal wing has failed to defend court cases filed against it leading to personal appearance of top administrative officers, contempt petitions and even a bailable warrant against the Registrar.
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Authoritative sources told Srinagar based news agency Kashmir Dot Com that Kashmir University’s success rate in winning court cases is very poor in comparison to other universities in J&K, with legal experts blaming lackadaisical attitude of the legal wing of the University in defending the cases before the High Court and the other subordinate courts.
Sources said in the last three years alone the University has faced several contempt petitions and personal appearances of top administrative officers in the High Court. In a fresh case of regularization of casual workers which was listed before the High Court on May 17, a bench of Justice Sajeev Kumar Verma issued a bailable warrant against Registrar of the University for allegedly defying the court directions in the case titled Sabiya Rashid and Others v/s University of Kashmir.
“In these circumstances, the Court is left with no option but to secure the presence of respondent No 2-Registrar, University of Kashmir, Hazratbal, Srinagar, through bailable warrant to the tune of Rs 10,000/-to be executed through SHO Police Station Hazratbal Srinagar,” the Court directed in its order and listed the case for hearing on June 12.
According to KU insiders, questions have been raised over the functioning of the legal wing of the University for the last many years. Even some officials have alleged that the legal wing has been hijacked by a few officials who have made it like their personal fiefdom and have even employed their relatives in the same wing.
“KU is a 75 year old institution which boasts of excellence. But the legal wing has brought disrepute to the institution by failing to defend its cases,” the official said, wishing anonymity. He said it has never happened in the history of Kashmir University that senior administrators had to appear before courts and face warrants or contempt petitions. “This speaks of the failure of the administration in having a strong legal wing,” the official said.
Sources said the Kashmir University Vice Chancellor has taken a very serious note of the legal wing’s repeated failures and is making the changes within next one month.
The failures are massive despite the University authorities spending lakhs of rupees amount in defending court cases, the sources said.
“The VC is considering hiring some good lawyers to defend the court cases so that university image and reputation is safeguarded,” sources said.
One former Professor of the Law Department said during his time the University was defended by a team of lawyers but that practice was abandoned for unknown reasons.
“It is a sad state of affairs to see KU failing to defend its cases. This is indeed denting the University’s reputation,” the Professor wishing anonymity said.
