‘Didn’t agree to deadline on spl courts formation’

Disposing the plea moved by Change India, the bench comprising Justice S Manikumar and Justice Subramonium Prasad, said, “The state government has decided to accept the proposal of the Registrar General (RG), MHC, to constitute courts in a phased manner. We are in 2019. A reading of the GO makes it clear that orders have been issued for the constitution of 16 Special Courts under the said Act. The RG has taken steps and the government have issued orders sanctioning four more courts in the year 2018-19.”

However, noting that from the status report of the Registrar General, it could be deduced that readiness report is yet to be furnished by three Districts- Dindigul, Ramanathapuram and Pudukkottai, the bench directed the Registrar to expedite the receipt of the reports from the above districts and take steps to make them functional.

Change India, represented by its director A Narayanan, had submitted that as per the directions of the High Court on June 10, 2015, the state government passed a GO for the establishment of 16 such special courts in four phases i.e., four courts in each phase from 2016-2017 to 2019-2020.  But, the courts were not established and notified within the cut off dates for Phase I.

While the Special Court at Srivilluputhur in Virudhunagar district was inaugurated only on April 24, 2019, readiness report from other three districts, namely Dindigul, Ramanathapuram and Pudukkottai are still awaited. The work on the remaining phases is bound to be affected and just one court had come into being nearly four years after the High Court’s direction, the petitioner said.

The bench in its order also noted that financial sanction for constitution of four Special Courts in the second phase one each at Cuddalore, Namakkal, Theni and Tiruvannamalai, for the year 2018-2019 was accorded on October 3, 2018. For the remaining eight districts accommodation report and statistics were called for on March 22, 2019 as part of third phase for 2019-2020.