Petition in HC urges for sessions and civil court at one place

A petition in the Bombay High Court today sought that the civil and sessions courts located in two different places in the city be combined and put up in one location, preferably in central part of the metropolis.
Currently, the civil and sessions courts are located near the High Court building in South Mumbai and in a separate building in suburban Dindoshi (near Goregoan).
The petition, filed by criminal lawyer Ejaz Naqvi, also challenged a recent Maharashtra government notification on allocation of Andheri police station cases to sessions court in suburban Dindoshi.
It said the High Court and not the state had the powers to decide through a notification on locating sessions court in keeping with the provisions of section 9 (6) of Cr.Pc.

The petition further prayed that the civil and sessions court should be located in Bandra or in a nearby place so that accused from nearby Thane jail and Arthur Road prison could be conveniently brought there.
It also sought facilities such as parking lot for litigants and a lock-up for accused in the court.

It further said only four criminal courts and eight civil courts were located in Dindoshi, which was not sufficient because cases from 35 police stations were being heard there.
The petition argued that this violated fundamental rights of the accused.
The petition came up for hearing today before a bench headed by Justice V M Kanade who asked the petitioner to move the appropriate bench.

The lawyer told reporters outside that the appropriate court was a bench headed by Justice Abhay Oka and said that he would move the petition before this bench tomorrow.