Courts Exist For Convenience of Litigants, Not Advocates: Bombay HC Rejects Bar Association’s Plea against Establishment of Court at Wai
Case: Satara District Bar Association, Satara v State of Maharashtra
Coram: Justices G.S.Patel and Madhav J Jamdar
Case No.: Writ Petition No. 3879 Of 2021
Court Observation: “The real difficulty with this Petition is that it is unclear what is the legal right that the Petitioner is asserting when it says that this High Court should not consider establishing a Court at Wai. It seems to us that this is entirely self-serving…We do not deny that the Bar has a role to play in the administration of justice. We however emphatically assert that it is the interest of the litigants that is paramount and the role of the Court and all those who enable its functioning, whether Judges or lawyers, are meant to assist the delivery of justice to the litigant.”
“The consumer of justice is the litigant and, therefore, the convenience of the majority of litigants should be a major and primary consideration for selecting a plot for allotment for new High Court complex. The majority of litigants come from far away districts. If the new High Court Complex is established at a place which is not easily accessible by means of a public transport to a large number of litigants who come from the Districts, it will affect their fundamental right of access to justice.”
“It is clear that the High Court took into account other factors down to details such as adequacy of accommodation for judicial officers in Wai and it is only on being satisfied that there were all these feasibilities that it made its proposal. To say, therefore, that the High Court considered nothing except pendency of cases is factually incorrect and is demonstrated to be incorrect on the record itself.”
“There is no such hard and fast rule. The High Court on its administrative side is primarily concerned with the administration of justice in its widest possible sense. It makes no difference whether the High Court first formulates a proposal and then places it before the Government for an opinion or whether the proposal comes from the Government. Nothing can possibly turn on this. It is clear that operationally neither the High Court nor the State Government can go around establishing Courts on their own without the involvement of the other. That is all that needs to be said in this regard. The High Court’s view in any case has primacy.”
“Two important aspects of this are the speedy and timely delivery of justice and physical access to justice. The establishment of a Court in a close proximity cannot really be said to be an undesirable thing to litigants who are in the vicinity of the proposed Court. There is no reason why a litigant should, on the Petitioners’ representation be required to travel 35 kms from Wai to Satara rather than have a Court in Wai itself; or to travel 55 kms from Khandala to Satara instead of 27 kms from Khandala to Wai or 60 kms from Mahabaleshwar to Satara rather than 33 kms from Mahabaleshwar to Wai.”
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Keywords
Convenience of Litigants, Establishment of Court
