Bombay High Court Pulls Up Maharashtra Govt Over Insufficient Number Of Family Courts

The division bench of Acting Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice Santosh Chapalgaonkar said "When steps are not to be taken, the correspondences are engaged into. This is to while away time."

The court made this remark after government pleader PP Kakade informed that there are several correspondences between various government departments and high court to set up more family courts in the state.

The court was hearing a PIL regarding shortage of family courts in the state. Section 3(1) of the Family Courts Act, 1994 provides that there should be one family court in a city/town with population exceeding 1 million.

The State had earlier submitted that proposals by the high court to establish 30 family courts are under process. The court today asked the State to submit status reports for each of these proposals by January 12, 2022. "We want to know what genuine steps are being taken by the government", the bench said.

In an affidavit, the State asked the High Court for information about accommodation for the proposed family courts in Mumbai (17 courts) and Nagpur (5 courts).

The court took exception to this query. "You want the High Court to say this? It should be the other way round. You should provide the infrastructure", the court said.

According to the State's affidavit, the establishment of family courts involves submission of proposal by High Court, primary scrutiny by law department, scrutiny and approval by finance department, and further examination and approval by other departments.

The petitioner, through advocate Meenaz Kakalia, said that there are seven family court judges in Mumbai and at least six more judges are required according to the 2011 census. Further, this could be higher now due to the increase in population.

Case Title – Tushar Gupta v. State of Maharashtra