Budhlada (Mansa), July 25
Justice Tirath Singh Thakur, Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, today urged the government to provide the judiciary with basic tools so as to enable it dispose cases without any delay and also to remove the backlog of cases.

Earlier, Justice Thakur inaugurated Rs 8-crore modern court complex here that has air-conditioned court rooms and halls for litigants. Justice Mehtab Singh Gill, Justice L.N. Mittal, Justice T.P.S. Mann, Justice Ajay Tiwari and Justice Ajay Kumar Mittal were also present on the occasion.

Justice Thakur said he was not against criticism of judiciary for slow disposal of cases, but the critics should also keep in mind that there were many reasons behind the delay. They should also take into account the poor condition of the courts in which the judges were functioning and the handicap of staff shortage.

The allocation for judiciary in the central budget was not even one per cent of the total outlay. While the judiciary, besides the legislature and executive, was one of the three pillars of democracy, it has to look towards the executive for meeting the basic requirements.

He said about 300 posts of judges were lying vacant while the number of pending civil and criminal cases has accumulated to about 12 lakh in the sub-ordinate courts under the High Court.

Justice Thakur asked the judicial officers and lawyers to maintain dignity of the profession and not allow a situation to develop in which people lose faith in judiciary.

He urged the Bar Association to cooperate with the judicial officers in order to strengthen the judicial system.

Earlier, Justice L.N. Mittal, who is administrative judge for the Mansa division, said the new court complex has a provision of one court but within an year, the construction of second court would be completed.

He said the new court complex had been completed in a record time of 16 months. He added that the new complex had a provision for construction of 90 chambers for lawyers.

Justice Mehtab Singh Gill, chairman of the building committee, also spoke on the occasion and gave a brief account of the judicial complexes already completed and to be completed in near future.

He said nine court complexes, including those at Bathinda, Rampura Phul, Jalalabad and Talwandi Sabo, would be completed within the next six months.

Bhupinder Singh, district and sessions judge, Mansa, and Umrinder Singh, president of the local bar association, also spoke on the occasion.

Bathinda, July 25
Running under an acute shortage of funds for the past two years, the Red Cross Drug De-addiction Centre on the Goniana road here is breathing its last as the authorities concerned have decided to close it after August 31 if the government did not release funds.

Sources said due to some irregularities in the records of the de-addiction centre, the Central government stopped releasing funds to it. In an attempt to keep it running, the District Red Cross Society (DRCS) has loaned over Rs 10 lakh to the centre. Since there is almost no chance of its repayment the society decided against lending more.

In absence of funds, the centre lacked basic facilities and the patients as well as staff are facing a number of day-to-day problems. The structure of the centre is crumbling and the roof of patient ward leaks.

According to details, the graph of patients at the centre is on a decline. In 1992-93, the centre admitted 2466 patients. From 1998-99 to 2004-05, an average of 1500 to 1200 patients were admitted. However, in 2006-07, their number fell to 550. An official said this year, a total of 252 patients had been admitted.

Chairman of the society Rahul Tewari has asked his staff to intimate the state as well as national authorities about the decision of closure.

When contacted, honorary secretary of the society Anil Garg said, "Despite repeated efforts and completion of all formalities, the centre could not get funds for the past two years. So, we have to close it down."

Bathinda, July 25
Harsimrat Kaur Badal, MP from Bathinda, on her maiden visit to the city after Lok Sabha elections said she was committed to developing Bathinda as a modern city as promised by her before the elections.

Addressing media at a resort here, Harsimrat said that on the completion of an year of the ‘Nanhi Chhaan’ campaign on August 27, she has decided to plant one lakh saplings in the district under the NREGA scheme. A tree plantation drive would be started from Badal village, she added.

Lashing out at the UPA government at the Centre, she said Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had provided incentive to the debt-ridden farmers of Maharashtra only while the farmers in rest of the country were left out.

Earlier, Harsimrat laid foundation stones of four police stations —Model Town, Industrial Focal Point, Canal Colony and Goniana Mandi — to be constructed at a cost of Rs 3.60 crore. She also distributed cheques worth Rs 11 lakh among 74 beneficiaries under the Shagun scheme and handed over a cheque of Rs one crore to the District Bar Association members as promised by CM Parkash Singh Badal for the early completion of lawyers chambers in the new judicial complex, for which the lawyers have been fighting for the past two years.

Bathinda, July 25
SAD-affiliated president of Rama Mandi Municipal Council, Kaur Singh, has been arrested for allegedly beating up a Congress Councillor.

Sources said Kaur Singh, along with three others, thrashed Krishan Kumar and his nephew Prince Kumar on Friday night for opposing him in the previous general house meeting of the council. Both sustained severe injuries.

Congressmen staged agitation outside the police station to get the accused booked in a criminal case. Meanwhile, in protest, the town remained closed throughout the day.

The police booked Kaur Singh, his nephew Gurchet Singh and two unidentified youths under sections 308, 341, 323, 120-B, 34 of the IPC.

MLA Jeet Mohinder Singh Sidhu has demanded registration of the case under section 307 of the IPC. — TNS

Bathinda, July 25
As many as 307 cases out of the total 500 were settled during a Lok Adalat held at the District Court complex here today. A compensation amounting to Rs 1.06 crore was awarded to the litigants.

Kuldip Singh, District and Sessions Judge, Bathinda, supervised the working of the Lok Adalat.

He stated that the system was gaining popularity with every passing day as it provided easy, economical and speedy justice to the litigants.

During the course of the Lok Adalat, revenue cases relating to mutation proceedings, compensation disputes, matters pending before the executive authorities of urban and rural local bodies, matrimonial disputes, recovery proceedings, cases under the Electricity Act, excise and taxation cases etc. were also settled.