Chief Minister Shri Virbhadra Singh said that the State Government would set up the State Judicial Academy in the outskirts of Shimla city. He was addressing the Chief Ministers and Chief Justices Conference at New Delhi today. Shri Virbhadra Singh said that the State Government had allocated 3-41-061 hectares of land for the academy. About Rs. 37 crore would be spent on construction of the State Judicial Academy. He said that the Government had given administrative approval of about Rs. 26 crore and expenditure sanction of Rs. seven crore had also been provided. He said that academy would prepare well trained and qualified managerial cadre to manage the judiciary at all levels and would also check the shortcomings in the institutions.
Chief Minister said that Legal Aid Clinics were being set up in the State at Panchayat level and 10 Mediation Centres had also been set up besides 10 ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution ) Centres were being set up for speedy delivery of justice in the State. He said that the Government had created 10 posts of Additional District and Session Judges in the State for rendering speedy and effective justice to the litigants. Two courts of Civil Judges (Junior pision) had also been created which would be notified shortly. He said that three Traffic Mobile Courts had been set up in the State to fast track the cases at magistrate level and four Special Magistrates had been appointed to dispose off the cases under section 138 of the Negotiable Instrument Act.
Virbhadra Singh said that despite financial constraints the State Government was providing best of the infrastructure to the Judiciary throughout the State and earmarked residential accommodation had been made available to almost all the subordinate Judges upto Sub pisional level. He said that the Shetty Commission Report had been implemented in the State and Padamnabhan Committee Report which sought to revise the pay scales granted by the Shetty Commission had also been implemented in the State.
Chief Minister said that the State High Court had a total pendency of only 56,899 cases while about four million cases were pending in various High Courts of the country. He said that about 2.24 lakh cases were pending in the Subordinate Courts of the State out of total of 27 million pending cases in the trial courts across the country. Shri Virbhadra Singh said that the State had one of the finest Judiciary in the country and the State Government would provide full support to further improve the institution.