GULBARGA: The groundbreaking ceremony in Dharwad and Gulbarga to mark the beginning of the construction of the new court complexes on Friday for housing the circuit Benches of the Karnataka High Court signalled the realisation of one of the long-pending demands of the people of north Karnataka.

While the credit should go to the former Chief Minister N. Dharam Singh for persuading the then Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court Nagendra Kumar Jain to sanction two circuit Benches, the first to moot the idea of a permanent Bench of the High Court outside its principle seat in Bangalore was the late D.K. Naicker who was the Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister in the D. Devaraj Urs Cabinet in 1970s.

L.G. Havanur, hailing from Ranebennur, who succeeded Mr. Naicker, continued to pressure the Union Government to concede the demand. Later, H.K. Patil, hailing from Gadag, took up the issue.

It was Mr. Naicker who first made the proposal for establishing the permanent Bench of the High Court in Dharwad, and this was the beginning of the prolonged struggle by the people of the region.

Gulbarga district was a late entrant in the race for the circuit Bench, and primarily it was Mr. Dharam Singh and M. Mallikarjun Kharge who raised the demand and were mainly responsible for influencing the Government to the district in its plan.

The main reason for the delay in establishing a permanent Bench of the High Court in north Karnataka was the indifferent attitude of the Union Government.

It did not act even after getting clearance for establishing the permanent Bench in Dharwad when D.M. Chandrashekar was the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court. Although the Karnataka High Court had constituted two teams to study whether there was a need for setting up a Bench either in Gulbarga or Dharwad, the issue remained unresolved due to contradictory reports of the judges' panels.

Although the Jaswant Singh Commission, constituted by the Union Government in the 1980s to go into similar demands in different States, had given its report suggesting various parameters for the sanction of permanent Benches outside the principle seat of the High Court, the demand of the people of north Karnataka was not conceded.

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