Asks J&K Chief Secretary for dedicated supply
Srinagar: Aggrieved of a complete power breakdown in the High Court on Monday, a division bench asked the Chief Secretary to provide it with a dedicated power line and arrange for a generator which could support its entire gadgetry.
During the hearing of a case against the University of Kashmir, the top court had a maiden and complete black-out for some hours. Irritated at this, Justice Atul Sreedharan and Justice Moksha Khajuria observed “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. It is pathetic and unbelievable that this is the condition of the Srinagar Wing of the High Court of J&K and Ladakh.”
The power failure took place at about 09:45 am and had not been restored till an order manifesting helplessness and anguish was jotted down around noon.
The judges said that the matter has gone from bad to worse and called for a permanent solution to the problem.
“This court requests the Chief Secretary of the Union Territory 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 air heating unit without interruption in the event of the dedicated power supply to the High Court fails,” ordered the bench.
The matter was directed to be listed on Wednesday at the top of the cause list of the High Court for further orders.
A copy of the order was directed to be despatched to the J&K Chief Secretary under the seal and signature of the division bench secretary by himself.
It is notable that Kashmir has been under the spell of “powerlessness” (facing shortage of electricity) since a protracted period of time. The consumers here are subjected to prolonged scheduled power cuts besides frequent impromptu outages. The administration, however, says that despite a slighter local power generation it purchases electric energy worth thousands of units every day and provides a smooth supply to the consumers.
