Special bench of Bombay High Court to be set up to hear malnutrition cases

Soon, a special bench of the Bombay High Court will be formed to regularly monitor steps taken by the state government to reduce and tackle malnutrition and child death cases in 11 sensitive tribal districts of the state.

A division bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice SC Gupte informed different petitioners and the state government that several orders and directions have been passed in the matters. Accordingly, it will be difficult to track allied issues and thus it was required to set up a special bench which will solely hear the petitions on every working Saturday.

Purnima Upadhyay member of NGO KHOJ who had written a letter to the Chief Justice which was converted into a petition, said "It is a good initiative that a special bench will be set up; this will channelise all parties' efforts and steps to eradicate malnutrition will prove beneficial to the needy."

The high court has told all the parties to submit a compilation of all the orders and petitions which are filed in the high court and pending, by Thursday, and has adjourned the hearing to April 11 for directions to place the matter before the special court.

The bench was hearing a bunch of public interest litigations, including that of Purnima Upadhyay, seeking effective implementation of the state and central schemes to fight malnourishment in 11 sensitive tribal areas which include Thane, Nashik, Yavatmal, Gadchiroli, Amravati and Nandurbar districts.