State government told to hand over court campus to judiciary

First Bench Comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice MM Sundresh before whom the petition was filed by Bar Association Pudukkottai, Secretary V Arumugam came up, said, “The High Court Building Committee has done a comprehensive exercise. The question is not about shifting government departments as a whole, but some of the departments, to facilitate adequate space for judicial infrastructure.”

Also, pointing out that the State has failed to come up with any satisfying reason to disregard the High Court Building Committee’s suggestion, the bench said, “The building is more than 100 years old and has an architectural significance. In fact, we thought that the Government would have adopted an approach of putting the building for courts use and shifted the administrative office somewhere else. This is also in the context of ideally there being no mixing of Government and Court infrastructure.”