BENGALURU: Justice Anant Ramanath Hegde, judge of the Karnataka High Court, has suggested an amendment to Section 5 of the Karnataka High Court Act and Section 19 of the Karnataka Civil Courts Act to confer jurisdiction to district courts to decide all appeals under Section 96 of the Code of Civil Procedure arising out of the decrees in property suits passed in senior civil judges’ court instead of the high court.
Observing that this is an attempt to explore a solution to expedite the hearing of the appeals filed against decrees in property suits and reduce the workload on the high court, Justice Hegde said this is likely to be a significant step forward in achieving the noble object of speedy and cost-effective justice at the doorstep.
A total of 19,275 Regular First Appeals (RFAs) are pending before the high court and on average 6 to 8 courts are required to hear them, considering various other cases pending before the high court, according to the order passed recently by Justice Hegde in an RFA filed by Thirakavva and others from Ranebennur in a property dispute which was pending for over 16 years.
“Various factors have contributed to the delay in hearing the First Appeals. The prominent one is probably the High Court functioning far below the sanctioned strength. At present, the Karnataka High Court has the sanctioned strength of 62 judges while the current strength is 53. This assignment is in addition to other subjects,” the judge said.
Judge Hegde said that around 200 courts will be available to decide RFA and those courts comparatively have a lesser number of cases to deal with, compared to the pendency in the high court. The current sanctioned strength of district judges in Karnataka is 311. Excluding the 35 judges working on the administrative side, 283 district and sessions judges are currently working on the judicial side. Judges at the district level adjudicating the appeals will ensure speedy and cost-effective justice for the parties. The existing Section 5 and Section 19 stand as big obstacles to the concept of justice at the doorstep, he added.
The judge noted that the discussion in this judgment relating to the delay in the disposal of cases is not to be construed as a criticism of the judiciary or any of the stakeholders.