Saturday, September 8, 2007

How often do you get to sit on siezed property?

The LSC team, in this case consisting of the Thalaivi and the token diga, went to Sriram Upahar and had a meal fit for a king. This was the first time I had hoLige in a hotel. If it was any other day that would have been the high point of the day, but today was not to be everyday.

I shall leave the funky writing to the thalaivi, and write as a good automaton should. As part of a project to review the working and administration of trial courts, we were to collect data from the city civil court in Bangalore.Monday being a holiday for NLS, we utilised the opportunity to visit the court and get a general overview of the project.

We first went to the Registrar, who was very helpful and had already known that the students from NLS would be visiting.He first took us to the receiving section of the new cases, which was way better than I had expected.

With regards OS suits, one may file a plaint in the relevant counter and pay the requisite court fee. Depending on the prayer, the nature of the suit is determined, whether it is an injunction etc. And depending upon the valuation of the suit, the fee is determined. As soon as it is filed, it is given a Filing Register (FR) number. This is the unexpectedly brilliant aspect of this court according to me - The case goes to court on the same day the plaint is received in the receiving office provided the plaint is filed before 1:00 PM. Plaints filed after 1:00 PM will go for the hearing the very next day.

That was the unbelievable part. I was in dream mode through lunch and through the initial stage of the walk through of the chief metropolitan magistrates court, till one of the assistants there finally said “we had an enquiry section; we closed it down due to staff shortage”. Then going through the run down property section (how often are you offered seized property to sit on?) and just before that, going through pending section of courts, separated from the actual court hall by cupboards, fodder for our study was sitting right there.

I have taken out many evil parts of this entry. Interested parties can contact me for the uncensored version.

Walking through these places I felt the thrill of seeing something most normal people don’t get to see. Looking forward to a big project and tonnes of fun in these very courts, I send this to Thalaivi who will post it on the blog.

-Vikram

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