March 20, 2002

    The Union Minister of Law, Justice and Company Affairs, Shri Arun Jaitley has said that it was proposed to set up 34 new Family Courts all over the country during the financial year 2002-03. Inaugurating a day long Workshop on Family Courts, organised by the National Commission for Women, here today, Shri Jaitley said the proposed new Family Courts would increase the number of such courts from the existing 85 Family Courts and go a long way in settling marital discords amicably. The Law Minister said that the Centre would share the cost with the States in setting up of new Family Courts during the next financial year. Out of 27 cities with more than one million population only 15 such cities had Family Courts. Family Courts were yet to be set up in Delhi.

    Talking of the efficacy of Family Courts, the Law Minister said that during the last two years, such courts disposed of 1,12,000 cases out of 4,92,000 cases that were filed before it. The cases that were pending for more than three years before the Family Courts were 7,769 cases. This showed that Family Courts functioned expeditiously, he added.

    The Law Minister called upon the National Commission for Women, representatives of various women groups and others concerned with resolution of family disputes especially the marital ones and those relating to custody and maintenance of children, to ponder over three areas of concern to make such courts a very efficient system for resolution of marital disputes and to sub-serve the broad objective of the Family Courts Act, 1984 to preserve sanctity of family. Normally, cases in Family Courts start with some bitterness and end up with some settlement. The first area related to provision of adequate and effective measures and determinant to make divorce a very costly proposition to work as a big deterrent against break down of marriages, linking alumni and maintenance to reality, consideration of the proposal of Bar Council of India and Bar Associations to allow lawyers to take up and argue the cases before the Family Courts so that women were not put to disadvantage with the help of tactful and deterrent legal acumen as in the present system the husbands used all types of tacts to put wives to disadvantage and provision of right to residence whether on sharing or alternatively independent basis so that the dignity of women was maintained and their human rights not diminished.

    The one day Workshop is intended to consider meaning of the Family Courts relating to judges and court staff, counsellors, psychologists, psychoanalysts, social workers, social engineers and gender sensitization training and orientation for them. Besides, the roll of judges in sub-serving the object of the Family Courts Act, provision for interim measures, their enforcement, role of counsellors, rules and procedures that ought to be followed in Family Courts, the kind of injunctions that could be issued by the Family Courts, provision of facilities for parties and children attending Family Courts , extension of Family Courts in proportion to the population and geographical area, allowing advocates to represent parties and innovative measures to be adopted to make Family Court effective were some other points for consideration in the Workshop.