Why not regional benches for SC ???

Disagreeing with the Law Commission’s recommendation for setting up four Supreme Court regional benches, Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan said on Saturday that he did not favour the “disintegration” of the Supreme Court. The Law Commission which is in favour of setting up regional benches has observed:

“The advantage of setting up Benches is that this can be made effective without any delay since the constitution of Benches is a matter within the purview and jurisdiction of the Supreme Court itself. If the judge strength of the zonal benches is confined to two judges, each zone will require only six judges which means that only 24 judges will be required for the four zones and other judges will be available in the apex court which have a Constitution Bench working on a regular basis.”

The number of cases pending at the apex court has recently crossed the 50,000 mark.Since the accumulated cases pertaining to a particular region would be dealt with by the particular zonal Bench, the apex court would be free to deal with only constitutional cases such as interpretation of the Constitution, matters of national importance such as references made by the zonal Benches to larger Benches due to conflict of authority or any other reason, cases where the interests of more than one State are involved such as inter-State disputes on land, electricity, water, etc. Reference made under Articles 143 and 217 of the Constitution, Presidential and Vice-Presidential elections, suits between two or more States, etc.”

The Law Commission also suggested that all PILs from any part of India should be decided by the apex Constitution court to ensure no contradictory orders were issued and also to halt the mushroom growth of cases.

It referred to various reports submitted by the parliamentary committees recommending such regional Benches and said: 

“We have tried all the measures to reduce the backlog of cases and the result appears to be far from satisfactory. The time has come when the entire judicial set-up will have to be re-hauled and refurbished in order to make the goal of speedy justice a pulsating reality."

The common man will have to suffer unless and until the monopoly of Delhi Lawyers over the Apex  Court are put to an end !!!