Cabinet approves Gram Nyayalayas Bill, 2007

NI Wire

New Delhi

Fri, 14 Dec 2007: 

Dec 14:  Thinking on the people’s grief that maximum number of them especially living in remote areas are either not getting justice or not getting on time owing to a number of cases pending inubordinate courts, the Union Cabinet on Thursday sealed on the Gram Nyayalaya Bill, 2007 with certain amendments to take justice to the doorstep of people.

As per the Gram Nyayalaya Bill mobile courts or village courts would be set up at Panchayat level and First Class Magistrate would head such courts. For this purpose six thousand magistrates would be required across the country.

The purpose for establishing such courts is to provide justice both civil and criminal to all villagers at the grass root level irrespective of their economic condition and to ensure that opportunities to secure justice are not denied to them for any reason and also it will help in reducing considerable number of pending cases in subordinate judiciary.

A meeting of the Union Cabinet presided over by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave its consent over the Bill for further pursuing in Parliament.

When the Law Minister H R Bhardwaj presented the idea of Gram Nyayalaya it met with stiff resistance within the government especially from the Panchayati Raj Ministry. But after much consideration the cabinet approved it.

The Gram Nyayalaya Bill was first introduced in the Monsoon session of Parliament earlier this year and then referred to the standing committee for suggestion.

A number of recommendations of the committee have been accepted by the government and now in the next session of parliament official amendments would be carried in the Upper House, said Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Das Munshi.

After the enactment of the bill the mobile courts will be established in every Panchayat throughout the country except in Jammu and Kashmir, Nagaland, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.