Residents of the town of Aheri, which is almost 250 km from the Gadchiroli district headquarters, had to make a minimum two-day journey to and from the Gadchiroli courts to attend their civil and criminal trials, something Judge BR Gavai noticed when he was a HC Mumbai judge in 2015, almost 10 years after his appointment as a HC judge.
Despite his promotion to the High Court as a Justice in May 2019, Justice Gavai continued his effort to deliver justice at the doorstep of this underserved region that comprises four tehsils: Aheri, Bhamragad, Sironcha and Mulcheri, which are situated in the area bordering Telangana and Chhattisgarh.
On Saturday, in an impressive gathering of the local population, Judge Gavai finally inaugurated the court after an eight-year struggle with the system. The Aheri district and session court will serve three lakh residents of the four tehsils, 70% of whom are tribal.
When the remote tehsils of Gadchiroli district get their first district and session court, 800 km away, the Orissa HC in Cuttack will celebrate its diamond jubilee on Tuesday. Interestingly, a bench of judges D Dash and Sanjeeb K Panigrahi will deliver 75 rulings on Monday to coincide with the 75th year of the establishment of the HC, a function at which Chairman Draupadi Murmu will be the main guest.