Pune lawyers urge setting up of ‘Vakalatnama’ boxes in court premises
Pune lawyers urge setting up of 'Vakalatnama' boxes in court premises
A group of six advocates recently met with Maharashtra Prison Department’s Special Inspector General of Police (SIG), Jalindar D. Supekar, to address the challenges associated with frequent prison visits for obtaining inmate signatures on petitions at Yerwada Jail.
The delegation proposed the installation of ‘vakalatnama’ (attorney papers) collection boxes at Shivajinagar court premises.
Advocate Vikas Shinde explained, “During a half-hour discussion with SIG Supekar, we proposed the appointment of a prison administration employee responsible for collecting ‘vakalatnama’ from a designated box in the court premises every evening. The collected documents, with the accused’s signatures, would then be delivered back to the court the next day.”
Shinde emphasized that this approach would eliminate the need for attorneys to make multiple trips to the prison, where over 5,000 accused individuals are housed. Currently, lawyers submit ‘vakalatnama’ in a document box outside the main gate of Yerwada prison, and prison authorities retrieve the signed documents from the inmates. Lawyers often have to make daily trips to the prison, and interviews with the accused are conducted over the phone within the prison premises, further consuming time.
The letter stated that while the lawyers can conduct online case discussions through audio and video calls, submitting the ‘vakalatnama’ still requires a physical visit to the prison. The document is returned to the advocate on the next day, and sometimes, due to technical or human errors, it may get misplaced or not reach the inmate, prolonging the procedure to 48 to 72 hours.
