Forum for Good Governance (FGG) has, through a letter on Saturday, appealed to Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan to take urgent steps to establish ‘Grama Nyayalayas’ or village courts for speedy and easy access to justice system in rural areas.
To provide access to justice at the grass-roots level, the Law Commission of India, in its 114th report, requested the Central government to establish village courts. Accordingly, Parliament had enacted the Gram Nyayalayas Act in 2008.
A general consensus was reached in a conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices in 2009, to bring the Act into force from October 2 the same year.
The Centre had undertaken to bear all the non-recurring expenses for establishment of village courts, apart from footing 50% of the recurrent expenditure.
However, in Telangana State, there had been no action on the file for the next decade. It was only on February 1, 2019, that the Department of Law issued orders sanctioning establishment of 55 village courts in various parts of the districts.
A year later, the Finance department sanctioned appointment of 55 Grama Nyayadhikaris and 225 supporting staff for the village courts.
For the last one year, there has been no action on the file, with the Law department transferring the matter to the General Administration department, and the latter not initiating any action, the letter mentioned, while seeking the Governor’s intervention.
