Dumka: Members of the legal fraternity in the state, especially in the Santhal Pargana, have welcomed the decision of chief minister Hemant Soren to set up a bench of the Jharkhand high court in Dumka.
“We are glad to learn that the chief minister has approved the proposal for setting up a high court bench in Dumka, directing the building construction department to identify a plot for the same. The fact, however, is that around 13 to 15 acres of land have already been acquired by the district administration about a decade ago,” Jharkhand Bar Council advocate Gopeshwar Prasad Jha told TOI. Jha had recently submitted a memorandum to Soren in connection to the demand for a separate bench.
“With the land already in possession of the district administration, the state government now just needs to transfer the plot to the public works department to develop the required infrastructure. A proposal should also be sent to the Union law ministry for it to initiate the process to get approval of the Parliament,” Jha added.
Jha said that nearly 40,000 cases from the Santhal Pargana were pending in the Jharkhand high court, and a bench here would largely help in reducing that figure.
“The Santhal Pargana is an impoverished region and so a large number of litigants fail to appear before the high court as they do not have the money to frequently travel to Ranchi,” Jha said.
The chairman of Jharkhand State Bar Association, R Krishna, said that the government’s step would make pursuing cases in the high court easier for litigants from the Santhal Pargana. “I hope that the project sees the light of day and does not remain a mere announcement,” he said.
The treasurer of the Advocates’ Association, Dheeraj Kumar, too, welcomed the move. He said, “People from the Santhal Paragana face a lot of inconveniences in pursuing their cases in the high court. Many of them have to travel around 250 km to reach the court. If the high court bench comes up, several lawyers from this region or the ones who have a large client base here may shift to the Dumka bench.”
(Additional reporting from Sanjay Sahay in Ranchi)