Bombay High Court needs new building, says CJI Bobde

Bombay (High Court) also needs a new building... the Bombay building was constructed for seven judges. It is now housing more than 40.

Panaji, March 27 (IANS) Chief Justice of India S.A. Bobde on Saturday made a plea for construction of a new building for the Bombay High Court, saying the original building was constructed to house seven judges, whereas currently 40 judges are functioning out of the same premise.

“Bombay (High Court) also needs a new building… the Bombay building was constructed for seven judges. It is now housing more than 40. It is impossible,” Bobde requested to Union Minister for Law and Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad during a function here, held to mark the inauguration of a new court complex for the Bombay High Court bench in Goa.

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Speaking about the future of courtrooms in India, Bobde said that court rooms and court complexes in the times ahead would be smaller due to technological interventions.

“Discussions on infrastructure have been largely quantitative, that is on building more courtrooms. Though building more courtrooms is necessary and important, there was very little emphasis on modernising existing courtrooms. In this regard, though the pandemic has posed a lot of problems to access to justice, it has paved the way for modernising the courtroom,” Bobde said in his speech.

“I see a trend of having smaller courtrooms in the future because of Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad’s ministry. The e-filing and data which can be contained is going to take away the need for many storage rooms and many rooms which are necessary for storing paper. The SC has done its bit on issues of court infrastructure. It has devised benchmarks and frameworks for minimum standards,” he also said.

Ravi Shankar Prasad also holds the portfolios of Electronics and Information Technology and Communications in the central government.