Case flow management to expedite civil court proceedings

A New Year bonanza awaits all litigant public, fed up of waiting in queues at open court halls in the city civil court to file their vakalatnama. From January 1, things will get a little easier as the city unit of the civil court will be implementing ‘Case Flow Management’ for speedy disposal of the cases.

Till date, the courts have followed a regular practice of carrying out administrative work in the open court halls that include filing vakalatnamas and objections. When a case is called out, it is followed by administrative work. Due to this, the litigants, as well as the advocates have to come to the city civil court and many a times wait for almost the whole day to just file the vakalatnama.

“The notification for implementing the case flow management system by the Karnataka high court had come out on December 29, 2006, but it its implementation got delayed by four years due to lack of infrastructure,” said advocate AV Amarnathan.

According to the notification, the case flow management will be implemented in subordinate courts from January 1.
Due to the introduction of the new system, all administrative works will come under the care of a separate presiding officer. This presiding officer will divide the cases into two categories and will prepare two cause lists every day.

The case at the stage of the hearing of interlocutory applications, reference to arbitration or mediation or lok adalat, evidence including the examination, cross examination of witness, arguments and judgment shall be listed in cause list one.

The cases at the stage of steps for service of summons or notice, appearance, filing of written statement or objection or rejoinders and framing of issues will be listed in cause list two. The cases in the first cause list will be called in the open court hall by the presiding officer.

The registrar, deputy registrars of the city civil court and small causes court, the authorised ministerial officer will attend to the cases listed in cause list two. These cases will be made available to the litigant public for doing the needful during the working hours of the court.

Former chairman of the Bar council of Karnataka Sadashiv Reddy said, “The courts function from 11 am and till 1 pm, only administrative work goes on. Thereafter, evidence cases will be called. Now that administrative work will not be taken up from 11.15 am, it will help in the faster disposal of the cases. Even the litigant public will not suffer. “We have to come all the way to the city civil courts just to file vakalat from the different ends of the city,” said a litigant.