Ground-breaking ceremony of new advocates’ building today

Vadodara: In another set of good news for the lawyers, the foundation stone for a new advocates’ house in the district court complex will be placed on Sunday morning. On Friday, additional rooms were allotted to place their tables until work on the new building is completed.
The foundation stone laying ceremony will be attended by the in-charge chief justice of Gujarat high court A S Dave. The new building will come up beside the existing advocates’ building, which is bursting at its seams with over 2,000 lawyers practicing in Vadodara district court at present. The announcement of the new building was made by former chief justice and currently justice in Supreme Court, R Subhash Reddy. Justice Reddy had made the announcement during the inauguration of the district court complex in Diwalipura in March last year.
Justice Dave will also inaugurate the vulnerable witness deposition centre inside the district court building on the same day. Vadodara district and sessions court is the first court in the state to get such a centre.
The centre will be useful for the trial of the cases wherein the victims are either children or from other vulnerable sections. At this centre, a different room has been made for the minor victims, so that they can avoid going through the trauma of a conventional courtroom proceeding or even have to face the accused directly. The separate room will have facilities like toys, television and food for the minor victims.
A helper will sit in the separate room with the victims with headphones and a microphone. The activities inside the room will be telecast live on a television in the courtroom for the judge, lawyers and the accused. For the victim’s deposition, the questions and replies will be redirected through the helper.
So far, the depositions used to be conducted in the judge’s chambers and a partition had to be put up so that the victim does not get intimidated by the accused.