Night courts- First and the only Indian State to have such facilities

Since November 14, 2006 44 such night courts have been launched in half a dozen districts including Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Rajkot. The experiment was launched in the presence of the then chief justice of India, Y.K. Sabharwal, who said that the model will be replicated across the country. Says P.P. Bhat, former registrar-general of the Gujarat High Court, who played an important role in setting up the framework of evening courts, "The full impact of this experiment will be visible when it gets extended to the entire state. It is set to usher in a new and positive era in the annals of the heavily loaded Indian judiciary."

The biggest advantage of evening courts is that the litigants don't have to take leave from work or, in case of a non-permanent employee or a small businessman, lose a day's earning. "The huge backlog of court cases is also on account of witnesses and litigants themselves remaining absent because of leave problems. And thanks to the backlog, judges spend most of their time making roll calls of petty cases. Now, the litigants do not have to take leave because they can come in the evening." Gujarat's Minister of Law and Justice Ashok Bhatt, who played a pivotal role in the setting up of the courts, says, "This is a great development. Evening courts will not only improve the overall quality of justice but also enable regular courts to devote time to the more important cases."