Split city into nine zones, HC tells govt

The Delhi High Court on Friday asked the Delhi government to divide the national Capital into nine areas to deal with criminal cases. The decentralisation will facilitate speedy disposal of criminal cases, the court said. Delhi’s crime chart

The Delhi High Court on Friday asked the Delhi government to divide the national Capital into nine areas to deal with criminal cases. The decentralisation will facilitate speedy disposal of criminal cases, the court said.

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"The respondent (Delhi government) is directed to implement the judgment of the Supreme Court before August 31 this year," a bench of acting chief justice AK Sikri and justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw said.

The high court also gave Dwarka Court Bar Association (DCWA), which had filed the Public Interest Litigation (PIL), the liberty to get the case revived if the government fails to divide the national Capital into nine metropolitan areas for dealing with criminal cases.

The court then disposed of the PIL filed by bar leaders, including DCWA secretary Avnish Rana, PS Singh and Sunil Sehrawat.

The Dwarka bar association had moved the court seeking a direction to the city government to issue a notification for dividing the national capital into nine separate metropolitan areas.

The PIL said Delhi, which has already been divided into nine civil district courts in 2000, has so far not been divided into nine metropolitan areas.

"That it may not be out of place to state that despite the directions of the Supreme

Court ...to carry out necessary amendments in the statutes in a time bound manner for the purpose of the creation of the separate sessions divisions in Delhi as provided in the judgement, it took more than 11 years to make the necessary amendments in Section 8 of the CrPC for enabling bifurcation of the Metropolitan

Area of Delhi into nine separate Metropolitan Areas and the consequent creation of nine separate sessions divisions in Delhi," it said.