The Gujarat High Court Wednesday observed that the courts are meant for litigants and that the difficulties, if any of judges or lawyers should not cause any difficulty to litigants..A division bench of Chief Justice (CJ) Aravind Kumar and Justice Ashutosh J Shastri said it wants citizens to approach courts and not shy away from it. "We want people to approach the courts. Our difficulties cannot cause difficulties to the litigants. It is for them that these courts are meant," the bench observed..The observation was made while the bench insisted Senior Advocate Yatin Oza to argue a special civil application (SCA) pending since 2005, post lunch break. The counsel requested the bench to let him argue the case before the break as he was to appear before some other court after the recess. .During the hearing, the bench also expressed shock over the fact that the matter was pending since 2005."It is appalling to note that even 2005 matters are pending. This is very very shocking. More shocking is the fact that directions of this court are ignored," the Chief Justice remarked..This is not the first time that the CC has spoken about the pending cases in the State.On Tuesday while noting the high pendency of cases, the CJ had observed that people should not lose faith in the judiciary and thus it was imperative to clear the piling backlog of cases pending since 30 years and beyondOn December 19, 2022 the bench led by CJ Kumar had issued contempt of court notices to nearly 10 Judicial Officers for failing to dispose of a suit pending since 1977.Prior to that, in November, 2022, the bench of CJ Kumar had noted that over 137 cases have been pending before the High Court for more than 40 years. He had therefore, said that these old matters would be disposed of on priority.
