Madurai bench of the Madras high court on Wednesday directed the centre to consider a plea for setting up a full or circuit bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT).

A bench comprising justices Chitra Venkataraman and R Karuppiah gave the direction to the union law and justice ministry and chairman of CAT while disposing a public interest litigation petition.

Petitioner A.Haja Mohideen, an advocate, submitted that government officials seeking legal remedies for service matters had to travel to Chennai to initiate proceedings before the present CAT bench there.

As already there was a large number of cases pending in the Chennai CAT bench, it was difficult to get remedy there, he contended adding he filed the petition as there was no response to his representations to the centre and the CAT Chairman on establishment of a bench here.

The judges said setting up a CAT bench was a policy matter which had to be considered on the representation made.

So without waiting for a decision on the representation, which was receiving the due consideration of union ministry of law and justice and the chairman of the CAT, this court could not grant the relief as sought for in the petition.

However, the judges the directed the union ministry of law and justice and the CAT chairman to take note of grievance of the petitioner and pass orders on the same.