Flooding of record room: Chandigarh to be held responsible if unscanned documents found damaged, says Punjab and Haryana High Court
Saurabh Malik
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, August 14
Three days after the record room of the old District Courts building in Sector 17 was inundated raising concerns about the fate of unscanned records, the Punjab and Haryana High Court made it clear to the UT Administration that it would be held responsible for any destruction of documents yet to be preserved digitally.
- Also read: Heavy rain floods Punjab and Haryana High Court’s record room in Sector 17
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“It is pertinent to point out that the old District Courts building in Sector 17 houses records of disposed of cases. Some of the records have been scanned, but the remaining are yet to be scanned. The extent of damage is yet to be ascertained, and in case the unscanned records have been destroyed due to inundation, it is an extremely serious matter where the responsibility would rest on the Chandigarh Administration,” the Bench of Chief Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Anil Kshetarpal asserted.
The case, originally scheduled for hearing on August 23, was advanced to address the aftermath of the flooding that occurred on August 11. The Bench described as disturbing the “events” while referring to the heavy showers resulting in the inundation of the record room in the old District Courts building “leading to destruction of hundreds of files”.
Taking up the matter, the Bench expressed grave concern over the UT Administration’s inaction despite repeated requests from the Registrar-General for curative measures following the vulnerable condition of the record room.
The Bench asserted that the Registrar-General apprised the Chief Architect and the UT Chief Engineer of the situation as early as in October last year. It was followed by repeated requests for remedial steps on April 8 and May 23, but “no heed was paid”.
Faced with the situation, the UT senior standing counsel sought from the Bench a short adjournment for instructions regarding the remedial action taken. The Bench was also assured on the preparation of a traffic circulation plan to ease the congestion taking place in the mornings and the evenings in and around the High Court complex.
The flooding of the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s record room in Sector 17 with more than 20 lakh case files had exposed severe infrastructural deficiencies that had been acknowledged by UT authorities but left unaddressed for months.
The critical state of the Sector 17 building had been documented in the minutes of a February 15 meeting chaired by High Court Building Committee Chairman Justice Deepak Sibal. The meeting, which included the UT Home and Finance Secretaries, recognised the severe space constraints affecting both the High Court and the District Courts complex. Despite acknowledging the urgent need for a solution, no effective measures were implemented over the ensuing six months. The failure to act apparently culminated in the disastrous flooding that ravaged the record room.
