Court Halls Expansion: Karnataka High Court Asks State To Submit At least Three Proposals To Chief Minister

The Karnataka High Court on Monday directed the State government to submit a minimum of three proposals to the Chief Minister for consideration regarding the provision of more space for the expansion of the High Court.

A division bench of Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice M G S Kamal, upon going through the compliance affidavit filed by the State, observed that merely submitting one proposal to the Chief Minister might not be adequate in addressing the issue of sufficient space for the court.

“In our opinion merely submitting one proposal to the Chief Minister for appropriate decision may not be sufficient enough to deal with the issue of proper and adequate space for this court. In our opinion at least three proposals shall be submitted to the Chief Minister, so that there will be a large scope for consideration by the Chief Minister.”

It added,

“We further direct that a copy of these three proposals be supplied to Registrar General of this Court and in turn the Registrar General to place these copies of the proposals before the Building Committee of the HC, to seek the response and the responses of the Building committee also be submitted to Chief Minister for consideration.”

The bench gave the direction while hearing a petition filed by Advocate Ramesh Naik L. The petition contended that using the basement in the High Court building as offices is contrary to law and prayed for a direction to the State Government to make additional space available to the High Court, so that the use of the basement for office purposes can be immediately stopped.

In its previous order, the Court had clarified that the State government should not only focus on the issue of additional and adequate space for the offices but also come up with a comprehensive proposal for additional and adequate space to be provided to this court, for housing the offices, chambers of the honourable judges and the court halls.

The Bench had also highlighted the rising number of cases and appointments of judges as factors contributing to the shortage of space. Delays in resolving this issue were deemed likely to exacerbate the situation.

When the matter was taken up today, the Court directed that such proposals be submitted to the Chief Minister expeditiously and not later than three weeks from the order of this court. The Chief Minister is then required to review and make a decision on the proposals within two weeks of their submission.

The court also acknowledged the statement made by the government that immediate action would be taken for obtaining an environment clearance certificate for shifting offices operating from the basement of the High Court to a nearby building. The court said, “We accept this statement as an undertaking to this court.”

The matter will be next heard after 5 weeks.

Case Title: Ramesh Naik L v. State Of Karnataka

Case no: WP 52022/2019