‘Dispose cases pending for more than 5 years’

Dharwad: Karnataka high court chief justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka directed judges in Dharwad district to start the process of disposing cases that are pending for more than five years.
Speaking after being felicitated at the Dharwad Bar Association here on Saturday, Justice Oka said the process will start from Dharwad district on an experimental basis. He said that soon after he took over as the chief justice, he had promised to visit all district courts and added that he had already covered to six districts.
Justice Oka said during meetings with judicial officers he has discussed about the infrastructure at district and taluk courts and also about pending cases. “I have asked them to dispose of cases pending more than five years. Let the process start from Dharwad district,” the judge said.
Expressing satisfaction over the infrastructure available at the high court bench of Dharwad and the district court, Justice Oka recalled that he had served as a judge in Maharashtra for 15 years and also as the chairman of the Building and Infrastructure Committee in that state. He recalled that he had visited all district and taluk courts in Maharashtra. “Compared to the facilities available in Maharashtra and some other states, the facilities in courts in Karnataka are better,” he said.
Justice Oka was particularly happy about the facilities available at the Hubballi taluk court. It has joined the group of courts in Delhi, Lucknow and Haryana which are considered as model courts, he said.
“I will ask the other judges in Karnataka to visit the Hubballi taluk court and get similar facilities in their respective courts,” the CJ said.
Justice Oka also had a word of advice for judges. Stating that the number of working days in a year had reduced after the state government announced holidays for government offices on the fourth Saturday of every month, he said judges should make optimum use of the time available at their disposal. “I had tried several times to reduce holidays when I was in the Bombay high court,” he recalled.
Registrar General of Karnataka high court justice V Shreeshananda, justice Dineshkumar, principal district and sessions judge Ishappa Bhute and others were present.