The government has sanctioned 224 posts of clerks for magistrate courts in the State. Each of the 112 magistrate courts in Kerala will now get two additional clerks.
The order comes after a long campaign by the staff of magistrate courts to increase the number of staff to handle the huge rise in number of cases in these courts. The staff pattern in magistrate courts had not been updated since 1982. A report by the Personnel and Administrative Reforms Department had in 1993 recommended the addition of 784 new posts in the courts. The Kerala Criminal Judicial Staff Association (KCJSA) had taken the matter to the courts after the findings of the report were not implemented in the last 20 years.
The High Court, in its order, had called for the implementation of the report and the establishment of new courts to handle the workload. The government had obtained a stay against the order and this was recently revoked by the court.
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KCJSA, in its State committee meeting held on Sunday, welcomed the order for creation of new posts.
Organisation State president B. Anilkumar and general secretary Antony Savio demanded that the other recommendations made in the 1993 report be implemented soon.