Even as the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court celebrates its 13th anniversary, it toils to keep pace with the rising number of pending cases..Attention is being drawn to the inadequate number of judges allocated to the Madurai Bench, making it difficult for litigants to get speedy justice..Lawyers have pointed out that the allocation of judges to the Bench has come down, in comparison to the previous year, as per a TOI report. The same report quotes former Tamil Nadu Bar Council member S Muthukrishnan as saying,.“Due to lack of judges, old cases, particularly second appeal cases, have been pending for 10 years. The petitions seeking to condone delay in filing them are also pending for years. In one case, the plea to condone delay of just 10 days was pending for 5 years.”.Advocate K Samidurai, President of the Madurai Bench Madras Bar Association, spoke to Bar & Bench about the dire need to appoint more judges, given the rising importance of the Madurai Bench..“There are only 12 judges, whereas the court has jurisdiction over thirteen districts. The present judges are doing a marvelous job, and dispose over 200 cases per day. The Lok Adalats and the Legal Services authority also do a marvelous job. There are more and more landmark cases being decided every day. But we need more judges in the interest of expeditious disposal of cases.”.He also recommends that a separate bench be established to hear criminal matters..However, the issue appears not to lie with the system of allocation, but the availability of judges for allocation. Senior Advocate Vijay Narayan, President of the Madras Bar Association points out,.“With the present strength of the High Court, the allocation is quite good. We have a limited number of judges. Out of the sanctioned strength of 75, we have 54 judges. For 54 judges, the allocation has been completed.”.Once the collegium fills up the twenty-one vacancies, it is likely that there will be an appropriate increase in the number of judges allocated to the Madurai Bench, opines Vijay Narayan..As of June 2016, there were around 1.8 lakh cases pending at the Madurai bench.
Even as the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court celebrates its 13th anniversary, it toils to keep pace with the rising number of pending cases..Attention is being drawn to the inadequate number of judges allocated to the Madurai Bench, making it difficult for litigants to get speedy justice..Lawyers have pointed out that the allocation of judges to the Bench has come down, in comparison to the previous year, as per a TOI report. The same report quotes former Tamil Nadu Bar Council member S Muthukrishnan as saying,.“Due to lack of judges, old cases, particularly second appeal cases, have been pending for 10 years. The petitions seeking to condone delay in filing them are also pending for years. In one case, the plea to condone delay of just 10 days was pending for 5 years.”.Advocate K Samidurai, President of the Madurai Bench Madras Bar Association, spoke to Bar & Bench about the dire need to appoint more judges, given the rising importance of the Madurai Bench..“There are only 12 judges, whereas the court has jurisdiction over thirteen districts. The present judges are doing a marvelous job, and dispose over 200 cases per day. The Lok Adalats and the Legal Services authority also do a marvelous job. There are more and more landmark cases being decided every day. But we need more judges in the interest of expeditious disposal of cases.”.He also recommends that a separate bench be established to hear criminal matters..However, the issue appears not to lie with the system of allocation, but the availability of judges for allocation. Senior Advocate Vijay Narayan, President of the Madras Bar Association points out,.“With the present strength of the High Court, the allocation is quite good. We have a limited number of judges. Out of the sanctioned strength of 75, we have 54 judges. For 54 judges, the allocation has been completed.”.Once the collegium fills up the twenty-one vacancies, it is likely that there will be an appropriate increase in the number of judges allocated to the Madurai Bench, opines Vijay Narayan..As of June 2016, there were around 1.8 lakh cases pending at the Madurai bench.
