Justice at midnight: Telangana HC sets benchmark in deciding cases

Hyderabad: In perhaps the first instance of addressing legal matters till the last petition during vacation time, the vacation benches of the Telangana High Court held the proceedings till late Thursday night. The vacation benches held by Justice Bollam Vijaysen Reddy and Justice Laxminarayana Alishetty respectively held the court proceedings on Thursday from 10.30 am till the wee hours of Friday. Justice Vijaysen Reddy continued the hearing till Friday 1.30 am and ensured completion of all listed matters and the urgent matters mentioned before the bench headed by him.

Justice  A l i s h e t t y Laxminarayana conducted the bench till midnight. More than 250 cases were heard by the two vacation courts both individually and as part of the division bench. Members of the legal fraternity say that this has set a new precedent.

“Such initiatives can help alleviate delays in the legal process and  enhance public trust in judiciary , especially in  the time of several criticisms over the vacations to the courts during summer”, some practitioners said. 

However, they opined that it is also essential to maintain a balance between addressing urgent matters and preventing unnecessary strain on the court system. Filing petitions as lunch motions during vacation periods without genuine urgency could potentially burden the bench and delay the resolution of more critical cases.

It is intriguing to see Justice Vijaysen Reddy Reddy following in his father Justice B. Subhashan Reddy’s footsteps, particularly in his approach to hearing cases diligently and adhering to the list. As the chairman of the Human Rights Commission, Justice Subhashan Reddy had ordered the staff of HRC to allow the people aggrieved with suppression of their rights and livelihood to approach him without any restrictions of time and day. He had impacted with his commitment to hear the grievances of the aggrieved as a High Court judge, chairman of the HRC and Lokayukta.