A new court to try cases handled by the Central Bureau of Investigation is to come up in the district. The number of CBI courts in Ernakulam will go up to three once the new court, which will handle criminal and corruption cases, begins functioning.
The Central government had announced in 2009 that 71 new CBI courts would be set up across the country to try CBI cases. It had proposed that the number of cases handled by each court be reduced to 50 so that cases could be resolved faster. The two existing CBI courts in the city, however, handle more than 60 cases each.
NIA cases
One of the two CBI courts in the district had also been trying cases of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), leaving it with a huge workload and little time to handle CBI cases. Earlier this month, the CBI-I court was given additional charge to handle NIA cases.
The case in which a professor’s palm was chopped off at Muvattupuzha has been shifted to the CBI-I court as part of the move.
Other cases of the NIA will also subsequently be moved to the court. The new court is expected to clear cases pending in both courts and speed up the judicial process.
