hyderabad: In what could be a game-changer to resolve huge pendency of cases, Telangana high court Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan on Saturday constituted two special benches to exclusively hear criminal cases and solve them. These benches, one of them presided over by the CJ himself, would sit on first and third Saturdays of the month though the court does not function on Saturday as it is a holiday. Sitting along with Justice T Vinod Kumar, the CJ heard several matters and disposed of four criminal appeals on Saturday. The other single judge bench presided over by Justice G sri Devi, resolved 35 cases. Given the fact that the Telangana high court came into being only on January 1 this year, this initiative, experts said, would go a long way in clearing a lot of pending cases.

With a backlog of more than 1.87 lakh cases and just 14 judges functioning out of the sanctioned strength of 24, Chief Justice Chauhan took the initiative to do something within his purview. “Let us make this happen was his message,” said senior counsel Pradyumna Kumar Reddy, a top hand in criminal cases. Justice Chauhan had earlier urged the higher authorities in delhi to enhance the strength of judges to 42 and also fill the posts so that they could work towards achieving the distinction of being a “no pendency court” in the country. That did not happen though. While this was so, all the appeals about CBI and ACB cases are pending since 2006.

In other criminal cases where persons had been convicted by trial courts, their appeals before the high court have been pending since 2007. In life conviction cases, the appeals are pending for the last seven years. As bails are not being granted to life convicts, a division bench earlier gave a blanket order directing the trial courts to grant bail to all those convicts who have already completed five years of their sentence. This was because there was no hope shortly that their cases would be heard, decided and an acquittal too may not provide them any relief if the current pace of solving cases continues.

In the meanwhile, the high court was bifurcated into two — one for Telangana and another for neighbouring Andhra Pradesh — and the problem only got worse due to lack of judges. It was in this background, Saturday’s initiative was path-breaking, legal experts observed. But, the chief justice is seized of the judges being already burdened with heavy workload with each one looking after more than six subjects. “The ultimate solution lies with the central authorities who have to recruit more number of judges for quick disposal of the case and ensure speedy justice,” Pradyumna added. With a backlog of more than 1.87 lakh cases and just 14 judges functioning out of the sanctioned strength of 24, CJChauhan took the initiative to do something in his purview