Overwhelmed

It was a sweltering afternoon in late April, and the 6th and 7th floor corridors of New Delhi's CGO Complex wore a deserted look.

This should not be the case, given that four benches of the National Companies Law Tribunal (NCLT), including the Principal Bench, operate from here and between them hear an average of 200 cases a day. On that particular day, as many as 210 cases came up for hearing. But by the time we reached the premises, the long passages featured nothing more than large iron trolleys loaded with case files on their way out, a few lawyers wandering around and cleaning staff at work, indicating the end of the workday, perhaps a bit too early.

Appearances are deceptive, though, and the workload here can be back breaking, especially for the judicial members, as many of them also have to hear cases assigned to Jaipur and Chandigarh benches. As of now, these two only have technical members, and legal members from other benches have to lend a helping hand whenever it is required.