NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has ordered all the High Courts in the country to frame or amend the rules providing for recruitment and conditions of service of court managers by recognising them as Class-II Gazetted Officer, while taking the Assam Rules of 2018 as the model ones.
It asked the HCs to submit the rules to the State Government for approval within a period of three months.
The court rendered its judgment on applications filed by Sachin Kumar Gupta and others, Court Manager Welfare Association and a writ petition.
Earlier, the court had said professionally qualified court managers, preferably with an MBA degree, must also be appointed to render assistance in performing the court administration in each judicial district.
A three-judge bench of Chief Justice of India B R Gavai and Justices Augustine George Masih and K Vinod Chandran clarified the High Courts and the State Governments would be at liberty to make appropriate modifications or changes so as to suit their peculiar needs.
"We are at pains to say that even though the Second National Judicial Pay Commission in its February 4, 2022 report had recommended and this court in the judgment dated 2nd August 2018 in the present proceedings had specifically directed the rules to be framed for determining the service conditions, the duties etc, of court managers, various High Courts and various state governments have not yet complied with the said direction," the bench said.
The post of court managers was proposed to be created by the 13 th Finance Commission for enhancing the efficiency of court management and to assist the district judges in administrative works so that the judges can devote their time to their core functions of adjudication.
The court, however, found most of the High Courts had not framed any rules and had appointed the court managers only on contractual basis or ad hoc basis.
It noted some states even discontinued the posts.
"We are of the considered view that since this court has been consistently observing that the service conditions of all the judges in the entire country should be uniform, it is also necessary that the system as approved by this court for providing the services of the court managers to the courts to enhance the efficiency of administration of justice also needs to be largely uniform throughout the country," the bench said.
