Gujarat lawyers don’t want courts to open on all Saturdays

GANDHINAGAR - Advocate groups have opposed the Gujarat High Court’s decision to make lower courts work on all Saturdays in a month from the new year to counter the mounting backlog of cases.

Like state government offices, lower courts, at present, observe a holiday on the second and the fourth Saturday of a month.

A total of 212 lawyers’ associations have raised their voice against a circular issued by the high court. The lawyer associations have passed a resolution and submitted it to the Bar Council of Gujarat.

President of the bar council, J.J. Patel, said Monday: “The lawyers from across the state are opposed to the high court’s decision and have made known that they will refrain from court work if their plea is not considered by the high court.”

A survey by the Gujarat National Law University suggested that there were about 23 lakh pending cases in the state.

A GNLU report recommended that the judiciary should increase the number of working days to reduce the pendency of cases.

As per the government records, the 950 lower courts in the state have more than 18.78 lakh pending cases. There are about 14,000 pending cases in industrial courts and more than one lakh pending cases in labour courts.