HC ‘prays to God’ for Chandigarh Administration to resolve space crunch

“We hope, expect and pray to God that UT Chandigarh Administration shall rise to the occasion to ameliorate the genuine grievance of the high court of acute shortage of space,” the Punjab and Haryana High Court has asserted, while pressing the administration to urgently provide additional accommodation to deal with its long-pending infrastructure crisis. The Bench cautioned that democracy itself would crumble if any of its three pillars — legislature, executive and judiciary — was weakened.

Taking note that the offices of UT Secretariat had been shifted to a newly constructed building, leaving the erstwhile premises partially vacant, the Bench of Chief Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Sanjiv Berry directed the administration “to explore the possibility of allotting two floors for housing the branches of the high court, which are facing acute shortage of space in Sector-1, by filing an affidavit in this regard.”

The Bench stressed that the Chandigarh Administration must adopt “a facilitative stance rather than adversarial. “After all, the requirement/need/constraints of the high court are the requirement/need/constraints of the Chandigarh Administration. It goes without saying that judiciary is the third pillar of democracy, which can function effectively only when the other two pillars (Executive and Legislature) work in tandem with judiciary. The edifice of democracy will crumble if any of the three pillars is weakened,” the Bench observed.

Pointing to the crippling impact of the shortage, the Bench asserted: “As against the sanctioned strength of 85, the high court has only 69 operational court rooms. This dissuades the high court from working full strength. We, thus, beseech the UT Chandigarh Administration to take a pragmatic view and allow the high court to expand infrastructurally, by giving approval to the holistic plan, be it restrictively.”

Referring to the issue of allotment of an alternative site for construction of a new high court building, the judges added that a meeting between the UT Administration and members of the Bar Association had remained inconclusive.

It recorded that Additional Solicitor-General of India Satya Pal Jain, in terms of its earlier order, had presided over the joint meeting on August 7. Among other things, discussions on the holistic plan had taken place and further deliberations were scheduled for August 20. The Bench also directed the administration to complete the work of laying green pavers in the kutcha parking area within 60 days. The matter has been posted for further hearing on August 22.