A five-member team, including top officials of Home and PWD, on Saturday visited the George Town Court here and assessed infrastructural requirements.
The visit was pursuant to a surprise inspection by Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, M.Y. Eqbal, on Friday, and the order passed by a three-Member Bench, which included Justices P. Jyothimani and T.S. Sivagnanam.
During the visit, the Chief Justice noticed several deficiencies. After making oral observations pulling up the State government for not providing the necessary infrastructure in lower courts, the Chief Justice had directed Chief Metropolitan Magistrate R. Killivalavan, Additional Advocate-General P. Wilson and Chief Engineer, PWD, S. Karunakaran, to visit the George Town Court on Saturday and evaluate requirements.
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Besides the three, the Principal Judge, Chennai, P. Devadoss and Joint Secretary, Home, Elangovan, visited the court and assessed the requirements. They were on the court premises for nearly three-and-a-half hours.
The court had already said that the Chief Engineer should file an undertaking on behalf of the government to provide all the facilities within two weeks. The matter has been posted for further hearing on Monday. The Chief Justice had said that on verification with the Registry it was known there was no proposal to construct any building for George Town Courts separately. Earlier, there was a proposal for constructing 17 courts on the Egmore court premises, including for G.T courts. Following strong opposition from the Bar, it was dropped. As such, a separate proposal should be drawn and a court complex constructed at George Town, he said. According to officials, the main building is a very old structure and will be classified as ‘heritage building.'