Work at courts to get distributed district-wise from todayFor once, Sanjeev Sharma was more interested in something other than the fate of his civil suit during his visit to court. He wanted to know where he would need to appear from Saturday for his pending case.Shyam Sunder, an accused in a theft case, presently on bail, had the same query. Apprehensive that his bail can be cancelled for non-appearance, his immediate concern was gaining information about the court where he would need to appear on the next date. Though the first was a civil suit and the second a criminal case, confusion arose as district courts are to go on a major revamp from November 1, as all cases would now be distributed according to their territorial jurisdiction. Until now, the situation was different as a majority of civil courts were at the Tis Hazari court complex and the labour courts at Karkardooma. The penultimate day, before work at the district courts is distributed district-wise, witnessed confusion among litigants and lawyers desperate to know where their cases would be heard from Saturday. Court staff could also be seen questioning about a few technicalities not made clear by the circular to the effect.Friday’s court hearings were more about sorting out the confusion regarding the cases — both pending and those to be filed afresh — than taking care of routine matters. Judges at all the five courts - Tis Hazari, Karkardooma, Patiala House, Rohini and Dwarka - preferred to give dates if the matter did not require urgent measures.“It could have been of great help had the authorities used the media to inform people about the change. I had to go through the complete list running into around 20 pages to know where was my case being transferred,” said Prashant Prabhakar, a litigant. A court staff said, “We spent the entire day detailing litigants and lawyers about the position of their cases from November 1. They were anxious to know as some of them had been fighting the legal battle for decades and could not afford to be penalised just because of their failure to appear on the fixed date of hearing, staff from Tis Hazari told Newsline.Moreover, circulars regarding the transfer of files from one court to another also failed to reach all the five district courts by Friday evening, making things all the more complicated, he added.“The list of court staff, shuffled from Saturday, also did not reach us. In spite of having a four-day holiday on account of Diwali, a couple of days could be utilised for preparing for the change so as to make things smoother and less confusing,” came as words of wisdom from a senior Ahlmed (record-keeper) from Karkardooma courts.
