Evening court at Coimbatore
Tamil Nadu will set up several evening courts to tackle the problem of pending lawsuits at the trial court level.Officials of the department of justice said initially 11 courts would be established on an experimental basis. The state will set up four evening courts in Chennai, two each in Coimbatore and Tirunelveli and one each in Salem, Madurai and Tirucharapalli. The courts would function from 6pm to 8pm. If the trial proves successful, more evening courts will be set up in consultation with the Madras High Court.Last November, Gujarat, with around 4mn pending criminal and civil cases, became the first state in the country to establish evening courts on an experimental basis.The experiment is showing promising results.With around 62 courts established by it since November 15, 2006, Gujarat has been able to dispose of around 62,000 cases.Officials said that following Gujarat’s example, the Tamil Nadu courts will also be manned by the sitting judicial or metropolitan magistrate on incentive basis and dispose of cases where the punishment is limited to imposition of fine.A three-judge committee of the Madras High Court, comprising judges Dharmarao Elipe, A C Arumugaperumal Adityan and M Jayapual will monitor the functioning of the evening courts.As of June 2006, the state had a total backlog of 874,938 cases pending at the trial court level. In some states, the figure is reaching the 5mn mark, according to ministry officials.Uttar Pradesh has a backlog of 4.74mn cases, Maharashtra 3.32mn cases, West Bengal 1.9mn, Bihar 1.2mn, Karnataka 1.08mn and Rajasthan 1.05mn.Law ministry officials said they hoped that more states would emulate Gujarat’s evening court experiment.The concept of evening courts was first suggested at the conference of chief ministers and chief justices of high courts in New Delhi last April.
