Every district in India has a court complex, so there is one near you. The chapter tells you what to look for: subordinate courts broadly include District Courts, Sessions Courts, Revenue Courts, Small Causes Courts and others, and the District Judge is appointed by the Governor of the State in consultation with the High Court.
How to find yours:
- Name your district first. The District Court is almost always in the district headquarters town, in a building usually called the District Court Complex or Kachahri.
- Check whether there is a court still closer than the district headquarters — many tehsils and blocks have a Civil Judge’s court or a Judicial Magistrate’s court, and some areas have a Gram Nyayalaya, the mobile village-level court set up under the Gram Nyayalayas Act, 2008.
- Confirm it from the district court’s own website. Page 138 of the chapter notes that details of cases are available on the website of each court and through the National Judicial Data Grid of India, so the site will also tell you the name of the District Judge and the courts working in the complex.
- Ask an adult at home whether they have ever visited it, and for what — a property registration matter, a land record, a licence, an affidavit. You will find that a court complex handles far more everyday work than dramatic trials.
Sample answer:
The subordinate court nearest my home is the District and Sessions Court, Nashik, in the district headquarters, about seven kilometres from my locality. The same complex houses the District Judge’s court, the Sessions Court which hears serious criminal cases, and the courts of the Civil Judge (Junior Division) and the Judicial Magistrate First Class. There is also a Civil Judge’s court at our tehsil town, which is nearer still, and a Lok Adalat is held in the district complex on notified dates to settle cases amicably. Above all of these is the Bombay High Court, which the chapter’s table (page 134) shows covers Maharashtra, Goa and the Union Territory of Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu.
(Replace the names with your own district, tehsil and High Court, taken from the table on pages 134–135.)