IMPORTANT POINT : Public Interest Litigation – No one has free right to approach Courts in public interest litigation – Forum of PIL is to be used only for protection of basic human rights of week and marginalized persons and not for improving Government system or drawbacks in implementation of any scheme.

ORDER :

Pankaj Mithal, C.J.

1. A committee constituted under the Chairmanship of Justice J. S. Verma (former Chief Justice of India) in the wake of Nirbaya’s Case made certain recommendations especially for formulating the Schemes to provide women with,

(i) access to justice;

(ii) access to Government services; and

(iii) access to welfare schemes of the Central Government and State Government both.

All these schemes were to be funded fully by the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) from out of ‘Nirbaya Fund’.

2. Accordingly, integrated Schemes, a Women Helpline (WHL) and One Stop Centre (OSC) came into existence. The Apex Court in Civil Writ Petition No. 565 of 2013 ‘Nipun Saxena v. Union of India’ recognized and underlined the importance of OSC and had expressed desire to set up OSC in every district of all States/Union Territories.

3. The petitioner is a Trust alleged to have been registered in Delhi in the year 2009. The said Trust through its founder trustee Professor Rajendar Kumar Kachroo has preferred this writ petition in public interest seeking direction of this court for the constitution of a committee under the Chairmanship of the Chairperson of the State Legal Service Authority to provide directions and guidance to the Department of Social Welfare J&K, in the matter of implementation of all women related schemes in Jammu and Kashmir, particularly, WHL and OSC. Secondly, for direction to the Ministry of Women and Child Development to assess whether the schemes of WHL and OSC in Jammu and Kashmir are being implemented as per the guidelines and lastly to allow the petitioner to make submissions before the Ministry of Women and Child Development in context of implementation of the above two schemes in J&K.

4. The petitioner alleges that the guidelines of the schemes provide for a cross departmental monitoring committee to be constituted under the Chairmanship of the Principal Secretary, Social Welfare Department, but till date no such Committee has been constituted with the result that the schemes are not being implemented in the proper manner. It is averred that the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India, is the architect of the Schemes WHL and OSC and provides for the guidelines of their implementation. The aforesaid schemes are to be implemented by the Department of Women and Child Development, J&K. The petitioner admits that WHL and seven OSCs in the districts of Jammu, Srinagar, Kathua, Doda, Rajouri, Anantnag and Kupwara are operational in J&K. Out of these OSCs, the petitioner is managing the OSC’s at Jammu and Srinagar whereas four separate Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have been selected to operate the OSCs of Kathua, Doda, Anantnag and Kupwara. The OSC of Rajouri is operated by district administration. Similarly, the OSC established at Bandipora (now closed down) and that of Samba are also being managed by the district administration. There are no OSCs in other twelve districts of Union Territory. The grievance of the petitioner is that in twelve districts of Jammu and Kashmir, OSCs have not been made operational for the past over three years since the scheme was launched. The quality of six out of eight operational OSCs is very poor and is not up to the standard. The implementation work of the scheme has been high jacked by the NGOs and they are not implementing them as per the designed features of the scheme. The respondents are not supposed to handover the responsibility of establishment of OSC to the district administration.

5. In pursuance to the order dated 24th December 2021 passed by this court requiring respondent no.1 and 2 to file response if they are satisfied with the implementation of the above scheme in J&K and, if not, how to go about improvi