High Court eases process to receive compensation deposited in courts

Procedure of personal presence done away with if documents are in order

Now, litigants need not personally appear before the trial courts to complete formalities to receive compensation for land acquisition, motor vehicle accident, and workmen compensation cases.

The High Court of Karnataka has issued these guidelines while noticing that several litigants, due to partial functioning of courts and prohibition of litigants’ entry to courts, were not able to receive payments for the last three months.

A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice S. Vishwajith Shetty, in its order, said that presence of litigants/claimants is not required if the trial courts are satisfied with the relevant documents submitted by them through their advocates for all the completing formalities.

Technical issues

The Bench, through a PIL suo motu petition, has been addressing the legal and technical issues encountered by the trial courts across the State due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Though online payment system to directly send the amount to the bank accounts of litigants from the judicial deposits was introduced some time ago, the litigants’ personal presence was required to complete formalities of identification and verification process.

Only when the courts express a serious doubt about the genuineness of the documents or find discrepancies, which their advocates are unable to explain, the presence of the claimants either through videoconferencing or physically can be insisted, the Bench said.

In case litigants are not represented by advocates, the payments cannot be made unless the applicants personally appear before the court and in such instances, entry passes should be issued to them and it should be ensured that the second visit of the litigant is avoided.

The Bench also said that the trial courts cannot insist on the person receiving the money to affix his/her signature on any register.

Matrimonial cases

Meanwhile, the Bench directed the family courts to ensure that monthly payment of maintenance in matrimonial cases are paid by the persons by way of online transfer to the those entitled to receive maintenance.

While directing the trial courts to dispose of all pending applications for payment at the earliest without restricting number payments per day, the Bench cautioned the trial courts to ensure that the amounts are paid to those who are entitled to it.