Jammu: The Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association, Jammu, Monday suspended its work in the courts and protested against the shifting of bank cases to Chandigarh Tribunal.
The call to suspend work was given by the Jammu Bar Association and it alleged that an attempt was being made by the government to make the public and the lawyers suffer due to the decision of shifting bank cases to Chandigarh Tribunal.
“The bank recovery cases have been shifted to Chandigarh Tribunal which is not in the interest of the lawyers as well as public,” President, Jammu Bar Association M K Bhardwaj said addressing media persons here.
He served an ultimatum to the government to stop the anti-people and anti-lawyer decisions while asking for the rollback of the decision.
“How can a remote area resident from Padder (Kishtwar) go to Chandigarh to fight his case? These organisations were established for the public welfare, but the work has been made inconvenient,” he Bhardwaj said. “We do not know what has happened to the pending files of around 2500 in the Human Rights Commission which has now been abolished after the Recognition Act, 2019. Who is looking after these files (cases)?”
He said that the lawyers came to know about a notification issued by the Government of India about the pending recovery cases in different courts of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh being transferred to Chandigarh Tribunal.
“This is a move to weaken Jammu Bar. To oppose the decision, we decided to suspend work in the courts,” Bhardwaj said. “For the last two and half years, we have been facing unusual issues like registration which used to be done by judicial officials but is now being shifted to the revenue officers. The offices of the revenue officers are scattered across Jammu which makes the work of lawyers more difficult.”