Chandigarh, April 21
Mobile village courts, the much-vaunted project of the union law ministry, are all set to become a reality soon, with the Centre sanctioning funds for the purpose.
The project envisions a new tier of courts, ‘grameen nyayalayas’ (village courts) aimed at ensuring easy accessibility of justice to the rural poor.
These courts are conceived on the pattern of munsif magistrate courts having jurisdiction over both civil and criminal matters and will work under the supervision of their respective high courts.
Talking to The Tribune on the sidelines of a seminar on ‘ADR- Arbitration, Mediation and Conciliation’, organised by the International Centre for Alternate Dispute Resolution (ICADR), here today, the union minister for law and justice H.R. Bhardwaj said, “I have succeeded in convincing the Prime Minister on the need to set up the village courts. Soon, 7,000 judges will be appointed across the country for the purpose.”
The new courts would have to decide a given case within three months and these courts would function under the jurisdiction of their respective high courts, the minister informed.
He said village courts were the need of the hour given the huge backlog of cases at all levels of judiciary in the country. Also, the logic behind the novel project was to mitigate the legal problems of poor who found it difficult to travel to district courts.
