HC miffed over power failure

Srinagar, Feb 19: The High Court of J&K and Ladakh vented its bile on Monday over failure of power and heating system during its working hours even as it asked the Chief Secretary to pass necessary orders to solve this problem forthwith permanently.

A division bench of Justice Atul Sreedharan and Justice Moksha Khajuria Kazmi during the hearing of a case took serious note of the power and heating system coming a cropper in the Srinagar Wing.

“During court hours, the High Court has suffered a complete power failure. The generator is also not working. There are no lights. The Air Heating Unit (AHU) is also not functional,” the court said. “It is pathetic and unbelievable that this is the condition of the Srinagar wing of the High Court of J&K and Ladakh.”

Dismayed, apparently, over the hours of breakdown of power supply, the court observed that the “power failure took place at about 9:45 am and was still not restored until about 11:28 am when the court passed the order”.

While the court observed that the matter had gone from bad to worse, it said: “A permanent solution is required.”

It said that this court requests the Chief Secretary of J&K to pass necessary orders to solve this problem forthwith.

“The solution may vary from having a separate power line to the High Court which does not experience any downtime and also supported by generators of such capacity which can power the entire High Court and also the AHU without interruption in the event of the dedicated power supply to the High Court fails,” the court said, and listed the matter on February 21.