Tuesday, Jul 08, 2003
Tuesday, Jul 08, 2003 |
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Kerala
By Our Staff Reporter
Addressing a `meet-the-press' programme organised by the Thrissur Press Club today, the Minister said the proposal is to sanction Rs. 2 crores each to the 600-odd district courts in the country. All these courts would also be networked through computers. The programme would be implemented after getting the sanction of the Finance Commission. A pilot project in this regard is being implemented in the four metropolitan cities, and as it has been found fairly successful in those metros the Finance Commission is likely to give sanction for the extension of the project to all the district courts. The Minister conceded that about 2000 posts of judges were vacant at the lower levels of judiciary including the district courts across the country. The number of vacancies at the higher levels of judiciary were also significant even though it might be relatively less compared to that of the lower levels of judiciary. The Union Law Minister, Arun Jaitely, has written to all the High Courts on the need for taking steps for filling up the vacancies at the district courts, on the strength of a Supreme Court judgment in this regard. The Minister said that steps were being taken to repeal many of the outdated statutes as recommended by the Law Commission. Each Department had been asked to submit a report as to how many Statutes relating to them could be repealed. He also conceded that the fast-track courts introduced in the country for reducing the backlogs of cases in the courts could not bring in the desired results. As per the original proposal, 1,773 fast-track courts were to be set up in the country. But in reality about 1,330 were set up. Even in Kerala 38 courts were to be set up as per the original proposal, but only 27 were set up. In terms of file disposal also the fast-track courts could perform as per the expectations. The original plan was the fast-track court would be able to settle 14 cases in a month. But this did not materialise because of various problems such as delays in appointments of judges and prosecutors. He said the Centre had decided to set up family courts in all the districts as per the recommendations of the Women's Empowerment Committee of the Parliament. The Centre would also be willing to set up additional family courts in districts such as Thrissur where there were more number of cases, if the State Government would make such a proposal along with the High Court. The Centre would sanction Rs. 10 lakhs for meeting the initial expenditure for setting up the additional family courts in the districts where there was already one, and another Rs. 5 lakh to meet the recurring expenditures. The State Government would have to raise the remaining resources for the additional family courts. The Centre was also making efforts to make the legal drafting simpler so that law would be more accessible to the ordinary people. The recommendations of the seminar of the legal experts, judges and the Law Department officials held in New Delhi in May last on the Law Commission Report in formulating norms on the `out of court settlements' was being scrutinised by the Law Ministry. The Minister said the Centre would bring in the Christian Adoption Act soo,n drawing up the rules for adoption for the members of that community.
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