Durdana Bhat
KL News Network
SRINAGAR
Chenab Valley is seeking a special bench of the High Court to take care of the litigations pending before various benches. The immediate reason being given is the poor state of the highway that prevents litigants from moving so often out of the valley.
“The policy of the government of India has been to take the administration of justice to the doorsteps of the people. The region being most inaccessible and people of the area being poverty-stricken makes Chenab Valley a fit case for grant of a High Court bench which must operates at least once a fortnight,” Syed Asim Hashmi, the newly elected president of the Doda Bar Association said. “This time when the highway is sinking fast, it is the ideal situation for the government to invoke section 101 of the Constitution of J&K and establish the bench locally.”
Hashmi said the lawyers bodies in Chenab are contemplating to send a detailed representation to the Chief Minister and Chief Justice of the J&K High Court.
Though the lawyers in the belt have been seeking the bench for a long time, the current communication mess is making them push for an early acceptance of the demand. The highway connecting the region with Batote is in a bad shape and the residents, last time, came out on roads to seek its early repairs.
The road sunk during torrential raining that witnessed massive land-sliding in Assar belt forcing a vast region to survive incommunicado.
Needless to mention that Chenab valley region is the largest single-geographic entity of the state that is facing crippling communication crisis ever since Baglihar dam became operational.
The people of Chenab valley have been seeking a circuit bench of High Court for decades.
“A poor litigant has to borrow money to fund his travelling costs to appear before the court in Jammu,” Hashmi said.
Doda is more than 200 kms from Jammu and if a litigant has to come from Padder, he has to travel more than 350 kms for perusing his case, he added.
Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed, it is worth mentioning here, was not against the idea of a bench in south Kashmir Islamabad when the lawyers met him there last week.