Chennai: The advocate who filed a petition on June 19 in the Madras high court seeking the creation of 15 additional family courts in the city has been asked to jointly work with the court’s panel to take the necessary decisions regarding improving the family court’s infrastructure. With over 17,000 family court cases pending and only four courts to deal with them, advocate George Williams said in his petition that there was compelling need for more family courts.
Since the petition was filed, the court has asked the advocate to jointly work with its panel members to take the necessary decisions about improving the family court’s infrastructure. The petition, addressed to Justice N. Kirubakaran, states that there is a difference between family courts and other branches of the high court since the cases (divorce, maintenance, custody) deal with issues related to personal relationships.
Hence, not just the husband and wife but their children and family members are also always present. Even though hearings happen all day, the courts are overflowing with people inconveniencing advocates and their parties. Many litigants spend all their young years running from pillar to post for a judgment and then find themselves unable to move on with their lives.
In 2011, a holiday family court was established to handle the overflow of cases but no new courts have been set up since. According to the petition, if the number of pending cases is reduced to 500, then a case could be disposed of easily in six months.The petition suggests that increasing the strength of family courts could effectively contribute to reducing the number of pending cases and improve the court’s efficiency.
