Kochi : The high court has been informed by the state govt that a core committee comprising the secretaries of the finance and home departments, the registrar of the district judiciary and the district judges of the districts where NDPS courts have been allotted will be formed to examine the requirements for establishing the new courts.
The court was also informed that a GO had been issued on Nov 2 sanctioning the redeployment of 10 court attendant posts from existing courts to the newly constituted NDPS courts. These submissions were made in response to a suo motu case initiated by the HC over the high pendency of NDPS cases in the state due to a lack of adequate NDPS courts. Advocate general K Jaju Babu further assured the court that there would be regular deliberations on the requirements of each district to expedite the necessary sanctions. The petition was adjourned for consideration after four weeks. The bench was informed that locations had already been identified within the respective district court complexes in Palakkad, Thrissur and Manjeri for establishing the new NDPS courts. Meanwhile, the registrar of the district judiciary filed an affidavit detailing the requirements of various NDPS courts that have already been sanctioned. The redeployment has been sanctioned for the judicial districts of Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam, Palakkad, Manjeri and Thrissur. Counsel for the HC submitted that the NDPS court in Ernakulam had already been made operational.
During the hearing on Thursday, the bench of Chief Justice Soumen Sen and Justice C Jayachandran recorded the submissions made by the AG and directed the registrar of the district judiciary to place on record the progress made in establishing the new NDPS courts.