Dharwad HC to get one more division bench

The high court circuit bench at Dharwad will have another divisi-onal bench. The new bench will be functional on January 3. Disclosing this here on Friday Chief Justice (CJ) of Karnataka High Court Justice Jagadeesh Singh Kehar said the decision was taken considering large number of cases being filed in the circuit bench here.

Justice Kehar who visited the circuit bench for the first time after assuming charge as CJ was addressing the advocates. He informed that 17,000 cases had been filed in the circuit bench in the last four months and the advocates had appealed to the high court to set up one more divisional bench to clear the cases fast. Two judges will sit in the new divisional bench.

 

Justice Kehar said two divisional benches would deal with civil and criminal cases separately. He said the number of cases filed at single bench in Dharwad circuit bench was on par with that filed at the main bench at Bangalore and hence the decision to set up another divisional bench. Justices A S Pachhapure, K Govind-raju, V G Sabhahit and H Billappa among others were present.

Green bench sought
Former president of high court advocates’ association B D Hiremath urged the CJ to shift the green bench of the high court back to Dharwad circuit bench.

He said the green bench which deals with cases pertaining to environment-related issues had been shifted from Dharwad to Bangalore during Justice P D Dinakaran’s tenure as CJ.

Since Bellary is within the purview of Dharwad circuit bench, it will be convenient for the people of Bellary to visit Dharwad than going to Bangalore, he said.