The state government has made a representation to the High Court chief justice wanting the courts in the state to function round the clock in three shifts.
It is reliably learnt that chief justice P C Ghose has responded positively to the representation made by minister for law and courts E Pratap Reddy on Wednesday.
According to Supreme Court advocate DV Rao, who had submitted a representation to the minister on the matter, 24-hour functioning of the existing courts will become a reality after getting approval from the chief justice.
Instead of establishing new courts, the government needs to appoint judicial and non-judicial staff to make the courts a 24-hour service in three shifts as in the case of health and transport services in the country.
Talking to Express, Rao said that he had a state-wide walkathon i.e. padayatra from Srikakulam to Hyderabad between December 3 and 24 last year, demanding 24-hour court functioning for speedy disposal of cases. Over 3.18 crore cases are pending in the country, 11.5 lakh of them in Andhra Pradesh. It will take 300 years to dispose of all these pending cases. At present, there are only 12 judges per 10 lakh population as against 50 judges as directed by the Supreme Court in 2002. Increase in court service hours would reduce the pendency and also the crime rate, and save valuable time and money of the litigant public, he said.