Permanent bench of Karnataka High Court to be inaugurated on Saturday

By PTI - DHARWAD

Published: 24th August 2013 01:05 PM

Last Updated: 24th August 2013 01:05 PM

A permanent bench of the Karnataka High Court will be inaugurated in Dharwad on Saturday while another bench in Gulbarga will become operational on August 31.

The Union Cabinet had approved upgrading the circuit Benches to permanent benches in June. Under the order, the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court has been empowered to nominate judges from his High Court to sit at Dharwad for cases arising in Bagalkot, Bellary, Belgaum, Dharwad, Gadag, Haveri, Uttara Kannada-Karwar and Koppal districts.

Judges sitting at the Gulbarga Bench will look after cases arising in Bidar, Bijapur, Gulbarga and Raichur districts of the state.

The order also gives the Karnataka HC Chief Justice the discretionary power to order any case or class of cases arising in any of the districts to be heard at the principal Bench at Bangalore.

At present, judges are sitting at Circuit Benches on a rotational basis for one month. The creation of permanent Benches would mean that judges will sit there on a permanent basis and it will end inconvenience to them, advocates and litigants.

Circuit Benches at Dharwad and Gulbarga were set up in July, 2008. The state had a sanctioned strength of 41 judges in 2008, which has been increased to 50 Judges since November, 2009.

Out of these, 6 or 7 judges sit at the Circuit Bench at Dharwad and 4-3 judges at the Circuit Bench at Gulbarga on rotation basis. The state has sanctioned 190 positions of officials to work for the Dharwad Circuit Bench.

Infy campus at Hubli gets Cabinet nod

Bangalore, Aug 23, 2013, DHNS :

The State High Level Clearance Committee headed by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday cleared 19 projects with an investment potential of Rs 14,818 crore including a new campus of IT giant Infosys in Hubli, besides projects proposed by Asian Paints and Wipro Enterprises, in Mysore.

According to a statement released by the chief minister’s office, the 19 projects have the potential to provide employment to 69,746 people. Infosys is likely to invest Rs 472 crore for its new campus in Hubli. However, the government did not release the details of the nature of the projects cleared.

Infosys is in possession of 50 acres of land in Hubli.

IT and BT Minister S R Patil had recently met Infosys Executive Chairman N R Narayana Murthy and urged him to open a campus in North Karnataka.

According to sources, Asian Paints will set up a six lakh litre paint manufacturing plant in Mysore, while Wipro Enterprises will set up a piston manufacturing unit in the same district. Mysore, the home district of Siddaramaiah, has got the second highest investment at Rs 2,404 crore only next to Bangalore (rural) at Rs 4,397 crore.

Other big ticket projects cleared include Cognizant Technology Solutions India Ltd at Devanahalli IT park, Tata Power for manufacturing equipment at Kolar, Kirloskar Toyota Textile Machinery for setting up its units in Bangalore rural and Belgaum.