CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Wednesday hoped that the governments at the State and the Centre would not create a situation to take recourse to the provisions of the Constitution for allotment of necessary funds for the functioning of the judiciary.
A full bench of Chief Justice SK Kaul and Justices TS Sivagnanam and R Mahadevan made the observation while passing further interim orders on three PILs, the first one filed in 2001, the second and the third in 2002, all praying for allotment of necessary funds for the effective functioning of the judiciary.
Additional Solicitor-General stated that there should be a better coordination between the law officers of the Central and State governments for finding solutions to this problem, specifically in the context of the Central government’s allocation having lapsed for two financial years - 2014-15 and 2015-16 - on account of the failure of the State government to utilise the funds.
The allotment for 2016-17 has been utilised. But a further allocation of `107 crore has been sought by the State, the bench noted and said that these matters can be discussed with the law officers of Central and State governments. The matter will be taken up on November 10.
Earlier, the bench noticed that in the 14 years of pendency of these PILs, the problem of finances for judicial infrastructure and running of the courts had still not been solved. As on date, about 176 financial proposals are pending with the government, an aspect which was being attended to in some other PIL. “It is with deep regret we note that a judicial training programme scheduled for the second half of October 2016 has been cancelled on account of lack of funds with the Judicial Academy,” the bench regretted.
It is in this context that the bench called upon the ASG to assist the court to know how the functioning of the court would take place if fund flow did not arise from the State government.