AP Council urges President to set up SC bench in south

Vijayawada, Jan 5 (UNI) Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council Chairman A Chakrapani today urged President Pratibha Patil to consider setting up of a Supreme Court bench in the south, preferably in Hyderabad, and two separate benches of Andhra Pradesh High Court in Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema.

Talking to newspersons here, he said he had submitted a memorandum to the President to this effect on January 1 and informed the President that setting up of two benches of the High Court was a long standing demand from the state people.

Dr Chakrapani said several states had additional High Court benches, like the Madurai bench in Tamil Nadu, Dharwad in Karnataka, Nagpur and Aurangabad benches in Maharashtra, Indore, Gwalior and Jabalpur benches in Madhya Pradesh, for a long time.

He said though Andhra Pradesh was the largest state in the south, it was indeed regrettable that no additional bench in the state was in existence.

He urged Ms Patil to establish a bench for the Apex Court in Hyderabad, considering the time taken for the residents in the south to travel to New Delhi to fight their cases.

The demand for Supreme Court bench in the South was not considered by the then Chief Justice of India on the ground that it was difficult to get the full text of the judgement on the same day for information and further action, he said.

Now, with the improvement in Information Technology and Online facility, there would not be any problem in updating the judgements of court, he added.

The apex court Bench would be useful not only for the southern states, but also for Orissa, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, he said.

The President had assured to look into the matter, he added.

UNI CS DS AM AS1732