Under pressure from the Supreme Court, the Meghalaya government is all set to separate judicial and executive duties of officials. The cabinet has already approved the service rule for judicial officials and will present a status report in the apex court on January 3. In Meghalaya, executive magistrates also function as judicial officials.The Supreme Court’s directive to initiate the separation of the two sets of duties came after a city lawyer, S Chakrabarti, filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Gauhati High Court. In 2002, the High Court directed the Meghalaya government to initiate separation of judiciary from the executive, but the government appealed in the Supreme Court and got a stay order.Later, the apex court vacated the order and directed the Meghalaya government to get on with the process and submit a status report by December 15. Two other northeastern states — Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh — were also directed by the apex court to initiate the process for the same.According to law department officials, if the executive is separated from judiciary there is going to be infrastructure and manpower shortage. As of now, there are only nine judicial officials who are attending to cases from three wards in Meghalaya — Jail Road, Police Bazaar, European Ward and also cantonment area. Presently, the executive magistrates are taking the load off them.
