Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghal on Saturday criticised government departments for filing appeals by default in a routine manner even when the court and tribunal orders are legally sound.

Meghwal stated that departments and serving officials challenge every order as a matter of routine and when the concerned officer retires, the government is informed that there was no need to file the appeal.

We must correct this practice and this tendency of automatic appeals needs to be reconsidered, he underscored.

"If we look at the functioning of our tribunals, CAT for instance, it was set up as the foundation of justice for our civil servants. Yet, we often see that departments take a routine approach. Even when the order is correct, officials insist, ‘We must file an appeal.’ Sometimes, an officer may have once noted in writing that a decision was incorrect. Later, if the tribunal rules in favour of the other side, departments feel compelled to appeal simply because of that earlier note. And then, after the officer retires, we are told that there was no need to appeal at all," the minister said.

Meghwal made the statement at the 10^th All India Conference of the Central Administrative Tribunal, 2025.

Chief Justice of India (CJI) BR Gavai and Attorney General R Venkataramani also spoke at the gathering.

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