No decision on SC Bench for Southern Region

The demand for a Supreme Court bench for the southern states is unlikely to materialise in the near future with Union Law and Justice Minister M Veerappa Moily admitting that the Government had not given any thought to the matter. 



In an interaction with journalists on issues concerning his ministry, he said the demand for setting up such a bench in Hyderabad, Chennai and other cities was certainly there but the Government had not done any thinking on it.



Mr Moily, a former Karnataka Chief Minister, said the Law Ministry was also looking into the proposal sent by the Karnataka government seeking a High Court bench in the northern region of the state.



In response to the demand for taking courts nearer to people’s homes in order to reduce the distance and time involved in hearing their petitions, he said, at present there are two circuit benches at Dharwad, catering to the Mumbai-Karnataka region and at Gulbarga for the Hyderabad-Karnataka region.



Mr Moily said the Dharwad circuit bench deals with enough cases but it was not the same for the one in Gulbarga. Adding to the pressure, was the demand from Bellary and Koppal districts in the Hyderabad-Karnataka region to assign their cases to the Dharwad bench instead of the other because of proximity to the destination.



The demand of these two districts was under consideration, said the Minister, adding it would not affect the status of the Gulbarga bench and the Government felt that the bench would have enough cases on hand.



Mr Moily said the Government had proposed to set up four world class Centres of Excellence in legal education in the four regions of the country.



The Law Ministry, which had earlier held discussions with Bar Council and other organisations, would be holding a national consultation on legal education in January to achieve this goal, he added.