Efforts on to set up SC Bench in South India: Venkatapathy

Efforts on to set up SC Bench in South India: Venkatapathy

VELLORE: In a bid to reduce pressure on the Supreme Court due to increasing number of cases, plans were afoot to establish a bench of the apex court in South India, Union minister of state for law, K Venkatapathy has said.

"Efforts are on to have a bench of the Supreme Court in the south," Venkatapathy told reporters here on Sunday after attending a function. However, he did not elaborate on where the bench would be set up.

He also said that Rs 410 crore has been alloted for the computerisation of the courts across the country.

"Already Supreme Court, High Courts and Metropolitan courts have been computerised and now lower courts are being computerised," he said.

As many as 7000 'Gram Nyayalayas' have been formed and judges would be appointed soon, to solve problems at the village-level itself, he said.

He said that the existing laws were sufficient to tackle terrorism and that “there was no need to have POTA like rules".

Cases involving violence against women also could be tackled with the existing laws, he said adding the Centre was considering death penalty for rape cases and "a decision would be arrived at soon".

The ministry also was setting up more number of fast track courts to dispose cases quickly.

"We have raised the number of fast track courts from 42 to 49 in Tamil Nadu and 39 to 66 in Andhra Pradesh", he added.

He also appealed to the lawyers not to boycott court proceedings as the people were put to lot of hardships.