No more trial courts in toilets and godowns: SC

The woes of trial court judges, working in pathetic conditions in remote areas, will soon be over. The Supreme Court on Friday said it would work out a scheme in two months time to make provision for better working conditions in over 16,000 courts across the country. "No more trial courts in toilets and godowns," said a Bench comprising Chief Justice S H Kapadia and Justices K S Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar while dealing with a petition filed by the Maharashtra Co-operative Courts Bar Association highlighting the woefully inadequate infrastructure of these courts in the state. The state governments, which had for long been citing fund crunch as the main reason for not improving the facilities at the trial courts, would be in for some surprises. For, the CJI did not appear to be in a mood to take this excuse any more."I will personally visit the trial courts and will work through the summer vacation in the apex court to work out a scheme to improve the infrastructure. We will take each state by turn and ask their concerned secretary to come for the hearing so that the improvement plan could be implemented," said the CJI after requesting senior advocate Fali S Nariman to assist the court as amicus curiae in the matter. The apex court was aware that just preparing the scheme and leaving it to the states to implement it has seldom yielded the desired results. So, the Bench said it would constitute a monitoring team for each state to find out how the court-approved scheme was implemented. The desire to change the status quo relating to the state of affairs of subordinate judiciary was reflected in the speech of Justice Kapadia, when he participated in the foundation stone laying ceremony of a state-of-the-art green geo-thermal cooling technology installed Rs 540 crore new building for the Supreme Court to solve the present space crunch. Justice Kapadia had said: "My heart goes out to the buildings where the trial court judges work. They do not even have fans while working in this scorching summer. The time has come for the Supreme Court to think about the subordinate judiciary to make them comfortable and provide friendly working conditions."