The 200-year-old Koyilandy court premises here will get two new buildings.
One of the two buildings, estimated to cost Rs.57 lakh, will be used to house court offices, storage facility of physical evidence and seized materials, record rooms, and washrooms. The second building will be constructed from the Rs.1 crore allocated from Koyilandy MLA K. Dasan’s local area development fund.
Lack of proper space has acted as a dampener in the taluk’s justice delivery system for decades.
The court complex has not had a single additional building or expansion of infrastructure since the British constructed the first pucca building in 1913.
The court complex was host to a munsiff court, a magistrate court, a third court dealing with motor accident cases, and a family court which has one sitting a month until it was upgraded in 1990 to include a sub-court. However, the sub-court added to the space crunch with the result that no other courts have been added to the complex’s portfolio for the past 23 years.
In a court complex where over 100 lawyers practice, there is no space to set up district or additional district courts though the courts have jurisdiction over some of the major police stations in the regions, including Elathur and Maniyoor.
The building financed by Mr. Dasan’s funds will be a three-storey one. This will be built after demolishing the present building housing the bar association, family court, the motor accident court, and court offices.
A district administration statement, on Tuesday, said tender procedures for the construction work had been completed. It added that the work would be done without disturbing the court’s main building.
