5 courts to come up in suburbs

HYDERABAD: The government will set up five magistrate courts — each in Rajendranagar, Kukatpally, Malkajgiri, Hayatnagar and Medchal — following a proposal made by the judiciary earlier this year. The new courts are likely to function in the next three months.
The judiciary had demanded the setting up of eight courts in Rangareddy district as at least 6,000 cases are pending in each of the four magistrate courts — judicial first class magistrates, Medchal and Ibrahimpatnam, additional judicial first class magistrates, Hyderabad east and north and west and south — in the district, sources said.
The cases piled up before the four courts will be divided and some allocated to the new courts. A meeting of the district judges and the police was held on Saturday to decide the jurisdiction of each court, the sources said.
With the setting up of new courts, convictions will go up, creating a sense of fear among the criminals. Speedy trials will help reduce the crime rate, sources said.
The shortage of courts have resulted in the adjournment of most of the cases. Each magistrate court in the district tries about 200 cases on an average everyday. In the true sense, the judge can only try a handful of cases, while other trial cases are adjourned.
Even if it is assumed that the judge takes five minutes for each case to call the parties and see whether all of them are present, it takes a minimum of 1,000 minutes for 200 cases. While, the judge has only 480 minutes of a day at his disposal to try the cases. It is in this backdrop that the petition for new courts was put up.
Meanwhile, a police officer said there will not be any problem in providing escort to prisoners as the video conferencing system has been launched to link the jail and the court.