CHANDIGARH: The Haryana Vidhan Sabha on Thursday passed a unanimous resolution requesting the Central Government to move an amendment Bill in Parliament to create a separate High Court for Haryana to be located in Chandigarh---the State Capital. The resolution, moved by the Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Randeep Singh Surjewala, urged the Centre to carry out suitable amendment to the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966 and the provisions of the Constitution to pave way for setting up of the separate High Court.

It also urged Parliament to take up such a Bill to carry out the amendment. Legislators, cutting across party lines, said that the interests of Haryana had suffered manifold due to the existence of a common High Court for Punjab and Haryana for the past 39 years.

Proper representation

They asserted that Haryana "has never been able to get its proportionate representation on the Bench as per the ratio of 60:40 between Punjab and Haryana''.

They pointed out that even at present there were only eight judges from Haryana out of the 29 judges in position against the total sanctioned strength of 53. The resolution also regretted the "insufficient under representation'' of Haryana in the Bar of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The MLAs pointed out that newly- created states like Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Uttaranchal, which came into existence much later than Haryana, had their own separate High Courts from the very day of their inception. "Except the seven Eastern states falling under the jurisdiction of the Guwahati High Court, there is no State in the country other than Haryana which was not having its separate High Court'', the resolution said.

Status of Chandigarh

Interestingly, some of the speakers tried to link the issue with the pending water and territorial disputes, including status of Chandigarh, during the two-hour debate.

The resolution also said that had there been a separate High Court for Haryana, the disposal of the cases would have been much faster.

Meanwhile, the demand for a separate High court for Haryana received a boost with advocates convening a meeting on Wednesday and expressing support to the Hooda Government's move to bring an official resolution in the Vidhan Sabha.

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