Employees of PSUs including banks may come under CAT ambit

EMPLOYEES of public sector undertakings or PSUs including those working in government banks may finally be able to approach Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) for justice in matters of recruitment and conditions of service if the government succeeds in installing better infrastructure in CAT. While talking at All India Conference of CAT in New Delhi on Sunday, minister of state for personnel, public grievances and pensions Prithviraj Chavan (See picture) said, "More government employees would be in a position to get speedy justice for their grievances. If we can fulfil the infrastructure needs of CAT, even the PSUs and the Public Sector Banking institutions could be covered." Currently, 191 organisations of the Central government come under the ambit of CAT which has so far handled about 5.32 lakh cases out of which only about 23,000 cases are pending. While inaugurating the conference, Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan said that CAT had progressively improved their disposal in recent years and some regional benches disposed off a higher number of cases than the numbers instituted before them. Chairman of Principal Bench CAT Justice VK Bali informed the gathering that 91% of cases of the principal bench were upheld in the writ petitions in Delhi High Court. "We have decided it as a matter of policy that life of no case in the tribunal in any part of the country would be more than six months", he added.