Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray paid an unusual “courtesy visit” to Chief Justice Dipankar Datta at the Bombay High Court on Friday afternoon.
It is rare for a chief minister to formally call on the Chief Justice.
Officials from the Chief Minister’s Office and at the High Court called it a “courtesy visit” and were tight-lipped about the details of the meeting.
According to High Court officials, there was nothing “unusual” about the “courtesy visit”. The meeting went on for 20 minutes, an official said.
Shreehari Aney, former advocate general of Maharashtra and senior counsel, also said there was nothing unusual about a Chief Minister calling on the Chief Justice. “They (the holders of the two offices) meet regularly for various reasons and such meetings happen periodically, even once in two months,” said Aney.
Separately, BMC Commissioner I S Chahal was also in the court premises. He was scheduled to meet Chief Justice Datta to discuss vaccination for lawyers. That meeting was also held as per the schedule, said an official.
Led by the Chief Justice, administrative judges of the Bombay High Court along with associations of lawyers, representatives of the state and central government had held a meeting with Chahal earlier this week to discuss a special Covid-19 vaccination drive for lawyers practising at the HC.
More than 1,100 people including staff members of the HC were vaccinated last week. As per sources, Chahal had said that nearly 1,000 vaccines can be made available for lawyers, however, all lawyers cannot be vaccinated due to limited stock of vaccines.
A division bench led by CJ Datta and other benches at Aurangabad and Nagpur have been hearing PILs pertaining to Covid-19 management for over a month and will continue the hearings throughout the ongoing summer vacation.
Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/uddhav-pays-courtesy-visit-to-chief-justice-at-bombay-high-court-7315461/
