August 24 was be a red letter day in the history of Dharwad as it got a permanent bench of the High Court that day.
Gulbarga will get its own bench on August 31. The actual functioning of the permanent benches will take another 4-5 months as the rules need to be framed.
The people of north Karnataka had been demanding aa high court bench in Dharwad and had had a prolonged agitation, which at times turned violent. The central and state governments, judges of high court and Supreme Court after much deliberation finally consented to establish the circuit benches in Dharwad and Gulbarga.
The people had sustained the pressure to convert these benches into permanent benches and the struggle has been fruitful now.
The move for the common man means speedy disposal of cases, and not having to go to Bangalore to file a public interest litigation or to go in for higher appeal and cutting down on expenses.
The demand for a permanent bench was just because the number of cases from the jurisdiction of the Dharwad circuit bench — which stood at 21,000 when the circuit house started functioning — tripled to nearly 70,000 in the past five years.
However, the courts hearing PILs, appellate tribunals and green benches continued to function in Bangalore.
