Jalandhar, April 8
Punjab and Haryana Bar Council chief Navtej Singh Toor on Sunday said the introduction of shift system in courts, as suggested by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, would go against the lawyers.

The PM had asked for the shift system to dispose of pending cases, while addressing a meeting of chief justices of various High Courts in New Delhi. Talking to The Tribune, Toor said the shift system was not feasible.

“If it comes into place, lawyers would have no time for their clients, office work and family. Instead, concrete steps should be taken to fill the vacant posts of judges”, he added.

Attributing the huge backlog to less number of judges, the bar body chief also emphasised on the need for increasing the number of sanctioned posts of judges.

He said, as per the judicial norms, each HC judge should handle 500 cases. “But in the Punjab and Haryana High Court each judge is handling more than 1,000 cases. And in lower courts, this figure is between 4,000 to 9,000.”

While about 2.5 crore cases are pending in the entire country, more than 11 lakh cases are yet to be disposed of various courts of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh, said Toor, adding that 5.25 lakh cases are pending in Punjab, 5.15 lakh in Haryana and 90,000 in Chandigarh.

Supporting the statement of Punjab and Haryana High Court chief justice Varinder Jain, Toor said the HC should be authorised to recruit PCS (Judicial) officers to fill the vacant posts of judges in the lower courts. He added it would expediate the process of appointment of lower court judges.

Jalandhar, April 8
There seems to be a bigger trouble for the nearly 14,300 applicants for the residential plots in the proposed Maharaja Yadvindra Enclave from whom the Jalandhar Improvement Trust (JIT) had amassed an amount of Rs 121 crore almost four months back. The trust, it is learnt, had done this illegally as it is yet to begin land acquisition for the purpose.

Of the total area of 70.5 acre for 502 plots near Pathankot bypass here as shown by the JIT for the proposed colony in the name of former CM’s father, the trust is yet to claim ownership of an area worth a single plot. The officials in the department confirmed that the acquisition was yet to begin as they revealed that the applications were invited simply on the basis of the demand survey conducted by the trust.

Even as the executive officer of JIT, Avtar Singh Azad, claimed that the trust could invite applications on the basis of demand survey, deputy director of Local Bodies, Sarojini Gautam Sharda, had a different view. While admitting that the trust had committed a wrong, she asked back, “How could the trust collect earnest money worth crores for a land which it does not own at all?” while giving her stand on the issue.

Insiders also revealed that the former trust chairman, Tejinder Bittu, had done this with his vested interest to woo the former CM, Capt Amarinder Singh. They disclosed that Bittu had been seeking the MLA ticket from the party at that time due to which he chose this modality to please the Captain. Efforts to seek comments from Bittu over the issue proved futile as he did not answer the phone call.

The issue is sure to give more jitters to some of those investors who had put in lakhs of rupees by applying for more than one plot. There are others too who had taken loans from the banks to pay for the earnest money and are now liable to pay more and more interest as the allotment hangs up.

The applicants were already worried with the reports coming pertaining to Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal’s stand on abolishing of the Improvement Trusts in the state. While the booking had begun on December 15 last year, the processing had earlier been hampered due to assembly elections. Even till yesterday, the officials had been saying that the draw would take two months more as the number of applications was far too high. But now since it is open that the acquisition is yet to begin and there has been a change of power in the state, this clearly indicates a bigger trouble for many.

On the other hand, the landlords, whose land has been earmarked to be aquired, alleged here today that the trust authorities had not made any payment to them. They further alleged that the trust had declared their land as barren and offered a rate much lower than the market price. 

Jalandhar, April 8
Even as the civil hospital here gets nearly three to four cases of postmortem daily, there are chances that some of the medico-legal cases go without proper investigation.

Why? Because the hospital does not have even a single doctor specialised in forensic medicine on its rolls.

As of now the hospital is handling the situation at its headquarters with the help of doctors in different specialties other than the field.

The hospital administration prepares a monthly roster in advance as per which a doctor (of any department) of the hospital gets a day’s duty for carrying out postmortem in a month.

In fact, there is no government forensic expert in the entire district. Even the civil hospital at Kapurthala headquarters is sans any medico-legal expert.

Surprising the services of the only forensic expert in the two districts, Dr Guriqbal Singh, is not fully utilised as he is posted at civil hospital at Sultanpur Lodhi, almost 50 kilometres from here, where there are not more than one or two cases a month.

Although there is lot invested on these doctors but their postings still cast many doubts.

Ironically, Lakshmi Kanta Chawla, Health Minister, had said she would give topmost priority to check false medico-legal cases but the ground reality has been quite different.

Even as forensic medicine is an important and sensitive field, the government has not paid a heed to create the posts of district forensic medicine officers.

A proposal in this regard was once taken up but is said to have been dumped owing to lack of as many experts in the field.

Now since the number of experts has risen, the government can re-consider its proposal afresh.

Medical superintendent Dr Ranbir Singh was not available for his comments. 

Jalandhar April 8
President of the Model Town Market Association and secretary of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee Manoj Arora has bagged the International Goldstar Award instituted by the India International Friendship Society.

The award would be conferred on Arora during a seminar on the Indo-Nepal friendship at Kathmandu on April 12. —TNS