Overburdened Family Court judge faints in Madras HC campus

Possibly due to the large number of vacancies in the lower judiciary, a judge of the Family Courts in Chennai yesterday fainted in the Madras High Court campus..According to news reports, Additional Principal Judge V Chaurasini collapsed as she stepped down from the dais after complaining of giddiness. After receiving treatment from court medical officers, the judge resumed hearing cases an hour later..The judge has been taking on the workload of four Family Court judges, ever since two judges were transferred last month; the third had gone on vacation. As per this report, there are about 18,000 cases pending in the four Family Courts in Chennai; 341 cases were listed before Chaurasini yesterday..And it is not the judges alone that are inconvenienced by the failure of the state government and the High Court to fill in the vacancies. In the same news report, advocate George Williams says that litigants are also at the receiving end of delays, as a result of the lack of judicial personnel to deal with the vast number of pending cases..He is quoted as saying,.“In addition to this, she had to handle administrative work…It is simply too exhaustive. As a result, almost every case is being adjourned not by weeks but months.”.In a bid to remedy the situation, Williams mentioned the matter before a bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice TS Sivagnanam, who replied that the procedure was underway.