New Delhi, April 8
The Centre has drawn up a 10-year perspective plan for improving judicial infrastructure under which states will be provided 50 per cent cost of the projects taken up by them.
Responding to queries about points raised by Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal at the conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices of High Courts, Law and Justice Minister H R Bhardwaj today said the Centre had been providing money from a fixed sum to assist in improving judicial infrastructure and this could have resulted in a shortfall in some states.
He said under the 10-year perspective plan, which had been discussed with the Planning Commission, the Centre would share half the cost of the projects taken up by state governments for the construction of court buildings and residential
accommodation of judges.
Badal, in his address at the conference, said the state government had taken up the construction of new judicial complexes under the centrally sponsored schemes. He said eight judicial complexes had been completed at a cost of Rs 36 crore and 14 new judicial complexes under construction would need Rs 95 crore for expeditious completion.
“The state government had released about Rs 23 crore during 2006-07 which includes central share of just Rs 105 lakh,” he said. Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda urged the Centre to urgently consider the long-pending demand of the state for a separate high court in Chandigarh.
Hooda said separate high court for Haryana might be set up on the existing premises in Chandigarh by allocating 40 per cent of the building, ministerial staff and the judges appointed against the quota of Haryana.
Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh said courts would be fully computerised in the state in a phased manner. He said state judicial academy had been set up for training and orientation of judicial officers.
