Litigants cry for justice

Hyderabad: Thousands of people who have been praying for justice in Telangana State are left in the lurch due to the ongoing protests over division of High Court. As Telangana advocates, judges and judicial officers embarked on massive protests in support of their demand of early bifurcation of the High Court, lower courts in the city totally stopped functioning on Friday. Many people, who were seeking justice from various courts in several cases, are now made to wait for days together.

• Protests over HC bifurcation delaying hearing of cases

They are coming to the court and taking a fresh date of hearing. This is the scene in most of the lower courts across the city. “My husband filed a divorce case in the neighbouring State of Maharashtra and I am not able to attend the case regularly. Therefore, I wanted to get the case transferred to a court in the city. But due to the protests, nobody has turned up for work in the court and I am left with no option but to wait for the crisis to end,” said 44-year-old Maheshwari (named changed on request).

Trouble started when judicial officials of Andhra origin were provisionally allocated to Telangana. This snowballed into a major controversy resulting in the suspension of some judges. For another petitioner Anita, further delay in the High Court bifurcation would take a toll on her financial condition. She said her maintenance money was held up due to non-functioning of courts.

Another petitioner, a 40-year-old Shantha Bai, who has been making rounds of a city court, said that her domestic violence case was about to end and suddenly the crisis of bifurcation came into picture. “Now, I am just coming to the court to take a date for the next hearing. The government should take some steps and ensure that the issue was resolved at the earliest so that people like me get justice,” she said.