Mumbai: The Bombay High Court recently said that the State government is obligated to provide citizens adequate number of courts and infrastructure for them, and that it cannot deny proper infrastructure citing financial constraints.
A Division Bench of Justices Abhay Oka and Justice A.A. Sayed observed that all courts and tribunals in Maharashtra suffer from overflow of dockets and lack proper infrastructure. The Bench was hearing a bunch of public interest litigations and petitions highlighting the issues of infrastructure of civil and criminal courts in the State, consumer forums at the State and district level, co-operative appellate courts and the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal in Mumbai.
“It is the obligation of the State to provide adequate number of courts, proper infrastructure to the courts and proper facilities to the judicial officers, litigants as well as to all the members of the Bar,” the Bench said.
Speaking about the backlog of cases, the court said, “The judiciary is considered to be a vital pillar of democracy. The common man has a lot of hopes and expectations from the Courts and Tribunals. Therefore they suffer from over flow of dockets and lack proper infrastructure. There are 407 Court Complexes in the State of traditional Civil and Criminal Courts out of which 72 are in the properties taken on rent.”
In the 220-page order, the court passed several directions, one of which directed the State government to ensure that the process to fill vacancies of president and members of the State Commission as well as district forums commences in four months.
The government will also have to start the process to digitise records of the State and district forums, and provide an e-filing facility. The president of the State Commission must soon submit a proposal for a dedicated website for the same.
The court directed the State to grant necessary approval within one month to enable co-operative courts to take premises on leave-and-licence basis for at least five years.
The Bench said that provision of a water filter and coolers in each court complex shall be continued, and added, “It is the duty of the Public Works Department to ensure that the water filters and water coolers are maintained in proper working condition throughout the year.”
The court also said that fire audits have to be carried out every six months in all the court complexes.
