CHENNAI: Irked by the repeated plea for adjournments in the matter relating to introduction of Legal Information Management and Briefing System (LIMBS) in Tamil Nadu, the first bench of Madras High Court has asked what prevented the State and the Centre from using the telephone, invented by Alexander Graham Bell a century ago, to seek necessary information over its implementation.
The bench of Chief Justice SK Kaul and Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana also threatened to take the matter to the Union Cabinet Secretariat for appropriate action.
“To say the least, this is exasperating. It gives an impression as if the central and state governments are incapable of picking up what Alexander Graham Bell invented years ago, and sort out the issue,” the bench said when the Centre sought yet another adjournment on the ground that it was in the process of holding discussions with the TN government.
Earlier on September 8 this year the bench was informed that the Union Law Ministry was setting up the LIMBS and it was still at an experimental stage. The system would help state and central governments to track the status of cases involving them, and to take necessary follow up action.
Impressed by the information, the first bench said a module might be given to it also, so that it could examine the same and offer suggestions. On October 6, the Assistant Solicitor-General (ASG) sought two-weeks time for reply.
Granting the same, the court had commented that the Centre too would benefit from the court’s orders and that the proposed module should not be construed as a ‘secret document’. “If the module is being finalised and it is at the stage of fine-tuning, the inputs would be all the more relevant,” it had said.
The Centre informed the court on November 4 that it was in the process of holding meetings with the State government to hold demonstration.
However, denying any knowledge of such a gesture from the Centre, Tamil Nadu authorities told the bench that they had not received any such information from the Centre.
Slamming the authorities for seeking adjournments on the ground that they were yet to hold discussions on the issue, the first bench said there seems to be great reluctance for even the High Court to have a look and make suggestions.