Early Times Report
Jammu, Mar 22: In a PIL, seeking direction to railway authorities to provide facility of passenger reservation system (PRS) within high court complexes in J&K as has been done in other high court complexes, a high court division bench of Chief Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar and Justice Tashi Rabstan today disposed of the PIL with the observation that the representation "is pending and railway authoirties are the competent authority to consider the request based on the policy which has already been implemented in 14 courts".
The bench directed railway authorities to consider the petitioner's request bearing in mind the policy which was in vogue and take a decision in this regard within 12 weeks.
The petitioner submitted that PRS was started within the complexes of several courts of the country, including Supreme Court, Delhi High Court, Tij Hazari Court, District Court, Delhi, High Court of Patna, High Court of Allahabad, Punjab & Haryana High Court at Chandigarh, Rajasthan High Court at Jaipur, Andhara Pradesh High Court at Hydrabad and Madras High Court at Chennai.
The said policy was revised on October 4, 2013 and PRS was started in the complexes of Jharkhand High Court, Ranchi, Madurai Bench of Madras High Court and Chattisgarh state New High Court Complex Bodri. More than 10,000 people were sitting in the Jammu court complex and around 2,000 in the Srinagar court complex for which separate reservation counters were required to be set up for the welfare of advocates, staff of High Court, subordinate courts and litigants.
Petitioner's counsel said since Jammu Railway Station was having so much rush due to pilgrimage to Mata Vaishno Devi shrine at Katra, advocates and court staff had to stand in the long queues for hours together for getting train tickets. Hence it was necessary to have railway reservation counters in the court premises, he submitted. (JNF) |
