With the growing demand for constituting high court benches in states across the country, the government on Sunday decided to appoint a one-man committee to go into the details of the matter.
Informing this, law minister Veerappa Moily said, “We have decided to form a one-man committee to look into demands for setting up high court benches.”
To set up such a committee, the law ministry is considering moving a cabinet note soon for its approval. The plan is that a former Chief Justice of India will be entrusted with the task of suggesting ways and means to set up such benches.
Even as the law minister claimed that no name had yet been decided to head the committee, sources in the ministry said, former CJI Justice A.M. Ahmadi could possibly be picked up for the post.
The law minister said, the present rule does not allow setting-up of benches unless the chief justice of the concerned high court agrees to the proposal.
The minister was referring to a Supreme Court judgment, which said any decision on establishing new benches in any state has to be approved by the Chief Justice of the particular high court.
There has been a demand from several quarters to set up benches of high courts in various states so that the cases pending before the respective high courts can be heard at a faster rate.
The most vocal demand has come from lawyers practicing in Western Uttar Pradesh.
They want benches of the Allahabad high court to come up at Agra and Muzzaffarnagar.
Similarly, Kerala has also been demanding setting up a bench of the high court in capital Thiruvananthapuram. The state government has insisted that the capital should have a bench, as sending officials to Kochi was proving costly affair.