Kerala - Kozhikode

Cost of litigation too high: Minister

Kozhikode: Water Resources Minister N.K. Premachandran said here on Saturday that the government and the judiciary should view the exorbitant expenditure involved in litigation with grave concern since its victims would be the poor.

Inaugurating a convention of the Kerala Criminal Judicial Staff Association, Mr. Premachandran said the cost of conducting a case was so high that the State government had to spend Rs.50 lakh on each sitting of the Mullaperiyar case.

He said the steep increase in the cost would deprive the common man of opportunities to get justice through legal means. A situation in which only the rich could afford to go to court had arisen.

The Minister hoped people would take up the issue with the seriousness with which they had been reacting to the government’s decisions to increase water and electricity charges.

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