IN THE HIGH COURT OF JHARKHAND AT RANCHI
W.P.(P.I.L.) No. 2211 of 2010
Advocate Association, through General Secretary M.B.Lal ... Petitioner
Versus
State of Jharkhand through Chief Secretary & Ors. ... Respondents
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CORAM: HON'BLE THE ACTING CHIEF JUSTICE
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE H.C. MISHRA
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For the Petitioner : Mr. Jai Prakash, Sr. Advocate.
For the Respondents : Mr. A.G. & Mr. Pramod Kr. Choudhary,
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Order No. 28 Dated: 18th of May, 2011.
Heard learned counsel for the parties.
Earlier the State of Jharkhand was part of the State of Bihar
and the State of Jharkhand was created on 15th November, 2000.
Obviously, the idea to create the State of Jharkhand must have
been conceived much before and may be the years before the date
15th November, 2000.
Any State could have been created only by taking into
account; what is the availability in the State area, where the new
city is required to be created and it is the constitutional requirement
to have the building of Legislative Assembly and obviously, for that
a building appropriate and suitable for running its business, the
Secretariat for the State Government, the High Court for the State
and, therefore, we presume that before 15 th November, 2000 it was
in the mind of the policy makers that there will be need of a building
of High Court in the State of Jharkhand.
More than ten years have passed for creation of the State of
Jharkhand and learned counsel for the petitioner pointed out that a
building which was constructed before independence, that is,
before the year 1947 was used for the Circuit Bench of the Patna
High Court and thereafter by some expansion, used for the Ranchi
Bench of Patna High Court from 1976 and in that building the High
Court of Jharkhand is functioning. Need for High Court building was
already known to the policy makers at least since 1972 when the
decision to have a Circuit Bench of the High Court was taken and
then in the year 1976 the permanent Bench of the High Court was
created in the city of Ranchi.
It is unfortunate that in the year 2011, the High Court is
running in a building situated in a total area of about five acres only
and ultimately the vigilant advocates of the Bar of the Jharkhand
High Court preferred this writ petition in the form of ‘Public Interest
Litigation’ and on 17th May, 2010 it has been observed by the High
Court that “learned Advocate General to state as to why despite
the statement came from the State Government for providing
300 acres of land for the purpose of new building of High
Court, nothing have been done till date”.
Learned counsel for the petitioner pointed out that H.E.C.
Ltd. has handed over about 2000 acres of land to the State
Government. The matter was taken seriously by the High Court and
vide order dated 28.05.2010, State was directed to take a final
decision. However, on 25.06.2010 it was directed by this Court that
matter be listed after one month to enable both sides to submit
comprehensive plans with relevant data as to the amount of land
which will be required, considering not only the present need but
the projected future need for the next at least 50 years. This Court
also observed that “when large amount of public money is
spent, it should not be spent on adhoc basis in a short-sighted
manner”. Since the working of the High Court was virtually
impossible in the present building, therefore, this Court on 27th July,
2010 observed that construction of the new High Court building
may take about five years and, therefore, this Court tried to
explore the possibility of giving some relief to the litigants of
the State of Jharkhand by exploring the other possibilities and
for that purpose a guest house of the J.A.P. came up for
consideration.
We may again state here that, there was a plan to construct
new High Court building since the construction of building may
have taken five years time therefore, a proposal was considered for
taking immediate steps only and it was not the final decision of
giving go by to the proposal of construction of a new High Court
building on a land of 300 acres. Then the matter went on for
consideration for expansion of the High Court in existing building.
It is unfortunate that this period was not utilised by the State
Government and nothing was done for starting the construction of
the new building of High Court. It appears that since expansion of
the building was under consideration, the main object of obtaining
the new building of the High Court with adequate facilities was
totally ignored.
At this juncture, it will be relevant to mention that along with
this writ petition, Annexure No. 2 has been submitted by the
petitioner pointing out that in I.A. No. 382/2005 in W.P.(C) No. 4513
of 2004 an application was submitted by the H.E.C. Ltd. stating
therein that the H.E.C. Ltd. is ready to give 1000 acres of the land
to the Government for construction of:
1. Jharkhand Legislative Assembly,
2. Jharkhand High Court,
3. Raj Bhawan
4. Jharkhand Secretariat (any other establishment which is
connected to and is ancillary purpose to the above items).
Be that as it may, it is the constitutional obligation of the
State to provide justice as well as its constitutional obligation to
have a High Court in the State and also it is the constitutional
obligation of the State to provide the building for the High Court.
We are constrained to observe here that presently in the
High Court building, there is a case filing counter which may not be
in the area of more than 10′ x 10′ and entire filing is managed from
that counter only.
We are constrained to observe that there is no sufficient
space for getting the files in the High Court what to say of sitting of
the staff of the High Court.
We are constrained to observe that the High Court premises
which is situated in shardingly small area of five acres where there
is strength of Bar of more than 2500 advocates attending the High
Court.
We are constrained to observe that even in one hall there
are about 300-400 advocates sitting all the time when they are free
from Court and particularly during lunch hours and after Court
hours or before Court hours to attend their clients.
In addition to above, there are 6-7 rooms in the building in
the first floor accommodating about 10-15 advocates in each room
which is absolutely insufficient for even five advocates.
One building gallery of that building is occupied by the
advocates and there they are doing their work when they are free
from the Court. There is no parking space for the advocates. There
are total lack of the advocates chamber.
In the present state of things, the expansion of the building
by taking 1.8 acres is clear indicative that High Court was in dire
need of some space for running its day to day business.
Such a serious problem has not been taken care of in 10
years by all the Governments but we think that now there will be
positive response of the Government and since the land of 2000
acres is available with the State Government presently which is
totally unoccupied and encroachment free and which is near to the
present High Court as well as near to the city itself, therefore, we
hope that the State Government will identify the land for High Court
of 300 acres in the H.E.C. premises in consultation with the High
Court within a period of one month specifically by 20th June, 2011
and shall measure, mark and will put the fixed points for the land
within a period of one month from today.
We may also observe here that the High Court building itself
is not sufficient and adequate number of advocates chambers and
land if needed for Bar Council and for the Advocate Association is
also required to be given by the State Government. There may be
construction of 500 chambers in the first phase alongwith the
construction of the new building of the High Court.
This order of giving time of one month has been passed
knowing it well that the project is already delayed. So far as the
need of High Court building is concerned, it has not been disputed
by any body nor it can be a dispute and the need of the building is
so urgent that we have to compensate the loss of ten years time
which we have wasted already.
Therefore, a copy of this order be sent to the Chief Secretary
of the State of Jharkhand and a copy of this order be also provided
to the learned Advocate General who is present before us in the
Court by tomorrow i.e. 19.05.2011. The matter be placed for further
orders on 20th June, 2011.
(Prakash Tatia, A.C.J.)
(H.C. Mishra, J.)
D.S./Sudhir