Lawyers protest lack of seating space in new l-shaped building in Nagpur

NAGPUR: After the inordinately delayed L-Shaped building was inaugurated on March 19, it was expected that it would resolve the perennial issue of lack of space — for parking as well as seating — faced by thousands of lawyers visiting the district and sessions court daily.
The problems are however far from over, apparently due to lack of coordination between the lawyers and the judiciary.
A group of lawyers, under the aegis of BJP Vidhi Aghadi, recently submitted a representation to deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis complaining about not being provided seating space in the new building.
Fadnavis assured them of speaking to the principal district and session judge to resolve the issue.
“When the foundation stone was laid, it was decided that every floor would have four rooms, measuring 3,000 sq ft each, reserved for the lawyers. It was said that two of them would be allocated to men, one for women, and one for the public prosecutors. However, after inauguration, only two small rooms have been allocated to us. Also, the prosecution lawyers have been provided only three small rooms,” former District Bar Association (DBA) president Prakash Jaiswal told TOI.
Another aggrieved lawyer pointed out that a building committee was constituted for deciding on how much space should be allocated for accommodating all DBA members.
“Led by principal district and sessions judge (PDJ), it comprised members including PWD executive engineer, then district government pleader Nitin Telgote, honorary member Uday Dable and others. This panel never took any meeting after 2018. As a result, the authorities did not make any arrangements for accommodating the lawyers,” he said.
DBA president Roshan Bagde told TOI, “We are trying our best to resolve the issue. We approached PDJ about our grievances. He has assured us that the administration would provide the space to us.”