Plea in High Court for gensets to lower courts

Chennai: An advocate has appr­oached the Madras high court to direct the aut­horities to provide generators or invertors to all subordinate courts in the state to ensure uninterrupted power supply and smooth and effective functioning of the courts.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice R. K. Agrawal and Justice M. Sathyanarayanan bef­ore whom the PIL filed by advocate R. Chithr­avelu came up for hearing, ordered notice, ret­urnable by November 28, to the registrar general of the high court, law secretary and TNEB chairman.

Petitioner’s counsel R. Y. George Williams submitted that when the petitioner attended the family court on the high court campus on Nov­ember 11 and 12, there were frequent power cuts affecting the smooth functioning of courts. Men and women attending courts, advocates, staff and even judges suffered a lot.

The family courts were already congested as la­rge number of litigants and advocates att­end the proceedings. Frequent po­wer cut was adding fuel to the fire, thereby causing inconvenience to them.

The subordinate courts are computerised and used for recording the evidence of parties. When supply is interrupted, parties have to wait for hours together. Hence, for effective court functioning, uninterru­pted power supply was necessary, Williams said.