Chennai: The creation of a combined court complex to enquire all types of cases alone can resolve several crucial issues like violence and unruly behavior by advocates in the Egmore court complex.
The committee headed by Justice K. Chandru, constituted by the Madras high court to inquire into the Parallel Justice Delivery System (kangaroo courts) at Egmore courts made this recommendation in its report submitted through advocate Narmada Sampath before a division bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice R.Mahadevan. The bench posted to December 21, further hearing of the case.
On a petition from A. Nagoor Gani, Roshan Sulai K.A. Banu and A. Alima Beevi filed through advocate K. Elangovan, the Bench had on September 30, 2015 appointed the committee headed by Justice K.Chandru, a retired judge of the high court, to suggest ways and means to control ‘excess’ behavior of advocates in Egmore courts.
In their petitions, the petitioners, allegedly assaulted by a group of lawyers in 2011, sought a direction to set up a committee to look into the ‘Katta Panchayats’ conducted by a group of advocates in the Egmore court complex.
In its report, the committee said, “To end the kind of violence and unruly behavior in the court complex is to remove the isolated functioning of the criminal courts and to have a combined court complex to enquire all types of cases”. The city can be divided into 4 judicial districts i.e., North-East, Central, South-East and South-West districts. In each judicial district, there must be a combined court complex having all types of courts including civil courts, criminal courts, family courts, labour courts and rent control courts. If all facilities were created, it will be easy for the litigant public to have access to courts which were nearby to their locality, the committee added.
Recommending immediate steps to be taken to deal with the problem of kangaroo courts, the committee among other things, said the bar council may be directed to expedite the process of completing the verification of the credentials of the members of the Bar at Egmore by giving priority while adhering to the Bar Council of India Certificate and Place of Practice (Verification) Rules in view of the high percentage of lawyers having degrees from outside the state. To control the court proceedings and to contain the unruly elements in the bar, the presiding officer of the court must be vested with certain powers and this could be done only by appropriate rules.
The Bar Council should take suo moto actions even on the basis of press reports relating to hooliganism indulged by a section of the bar, the committee added.
