High Court to launch Clean Environment Drive

The Madras High Court Bench here has proposed to launch a ‘Clean Environment Drive,’ titled in Tamil as ‘Inaivom Maasu Kalaivom,’ on Saturday to clean its campus spread over 100 acres with the assistance of judges, lawyers, law officers, court staff, advocate clerks, sanitary workers from the corporation and others.

Acting on the instructions of Justice S. Nagamuthu, the administrative judge of the Bench, its Registrar (Administration) V. Uma has issued a notification informing all the Bar Associations and individual lawyers about the move and seeking their cooperation in the successful launch of the project aimed at keeping the campus clean and green.

Rent arrears

In another notification, the Registrar has also published the names of lawyers who had defaulted payment of rent for long for the chambers occupied by them on the High Court campus.

The defaulters included a Post Office functioning in the building housing the lawyers’ chambers and three commercial establishments in the in-house shopping complex.

As per the notification, the Post Officer had not paid rent and electricity charges since 2007 and had an arrears of Rs.2.66 lakh.

Similarly, the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court Bar Association was yet to pay Rs.21, 248. A fruit juice shop, an Aavin milk parlour and photocopying and job typing shop in the shopping complex too had arrears of rent.

The total arrears, including the amount due from individual lawyers, was Rs.4.11 lakh, the notification stated.

According to court officials, the lawyers were dodging payment of rent on one pretext or the other. Some of the main allottees of the chambers were citing non cooperation from the co-allottees in settling the arrears.

They also said that the court had also cracked down on overnight parking of vehicles on the court campus without seeking any permission from the Registry.

No parking

Directing the lawyers and court staff to desist from using the court as a parking lot, the Registry has warned them that the vehicles would be handed over to the police if they were found parked overnight.