17-storey, AC Mazgaon court building to be inaugurated on April 22 | Mumbai news - Hindustan Times
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17-storey, AC Mazgaon court building to be inaugurated on April 22

Apr 20, 2023 12:29 AM IST

The Bombay City Civil and Sessions Court bar association has passed a resolution against the shifting of 22 civil and sessions courts from the Fort court complex to the new building in Mazgaon.

Mumbai: The new 17-storey, centrally air-conditioned Mazgaon court building will be inaugurated on Saturday. Lawyers, however, opposed shifting some of the courts to the newly constructed tower.

Mumbai, India - Aug. 28, 2015 : Mazgaon Court : ( Photo by Bhushan Koyande )
Mumbai, India - Aug. 28, 2015 : Mazgaon Court : ( Photo by Bhushan Koyande )

The Bombay City Civil and Sessions Court bar association has passed a resolution against the shifting of 22 civil and sessions courts from the Fort court complex to the new building in Mazgaon.

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The new tower will house 21 magistrate courts and 21 sessions courts. Apart from Mazgaon magistrate courts – which are presently functioning from Sewri – three magistrate courts in Ballard Estate are slated to be shifted to the new building.

However, there still is no clarity on which sessions courts and city civil courts would be shifted to the new building. Amidst the ambiguity, the City Civil and Sessions Court bar association on Tuesday night decided to not participate in the inauguration of the new building. However, on Wednesday, they decided that they would participate in the ceremony but would continue their fight opposing the transfer of the city civil and sessions courts to Mazgaon.

“The new building is prepared to house 42 total courts and will have a token system to manage entry to the court,” an official from the court said. “The person whose case is listed for hearing or has some specific court work would be given a token upon verification and only they would be allowed inside the new building. This is done for security purposes.”

An office bearer of the bar association on the condition of anonymity said, “The whole subject has become sensitive now. Earlier there was a buzz that they would shift the civil court to the new building. Later, it was contemplated that some of the civil and sessions courts would be shifted to the new building. We oppose both propositions.”

There is still no clarity on this as it is now being contemplated that the 21 courts in the new building would altogether be new courts which would be in addition to the existing courts, he said, adding, “They are also contemplating adding eight courts to the present building.”

Bombay City Civil and Sessions Court started functioning in the Venetian Gothic style building, originally constructed by the British rulers in 1874 as the state secretariat for the Bombay Presidency (and therefore is also known as the Old Secretariat Building), 1967. The Bombay City Civil Court Act 1948 came into force on August 16, 1948, but the court continued to function from the present Bombay high court building.

The city civil and Sessions court was shifted to the Old Secretariat Building in 1967 when there were four courts. Five years later, the New Annex Building was constructed as filing on both, civil and criminal sides, increased exponentially. In 2012, after the pecuniary jurisdiction of the City Civil Court was increased from 50,000 to 1 crore, thousands of civil suits were transferred from the Bombay high court to the city civil court, increasing the burden on the latter manifold.

Thereafter, in 2003 a fast-track court was started at Sewri to handle certain criminal trials and in 2007 the Dindoshi sessions court, having jurisdiction over areas from Bandra to Dahisar, came into force. At present the sessions court complex at Fort houses 61 courts which deal with the civil and criminal cases arising from Colaba to Mahim on the Western side and Colaba to Mulund on the Eastern side, and cases registered under special enactments like TADA, MCOCA, NDPS, Prevention of Corruption Act, SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, and also the cases registered by central agencies like the Central Bureau of Investigation, National Investigation Agency and the Enforcement Directorate.

As per the statistics provided by the sessions court, in 2013, 17,226 civil cases and 19,542 criminal cases were lodged. Around a decade later, last year, the filing figures went up to 48,476.

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