In an interesting twist to the government’s failure in power supply, a division bench of the High Court felt constrained to put it on record and issue directions to the government.
The bench comprising Justice Atul Sreedharan and Mukhsha Khajuria Kazmi stated that neither there is a power supply nor the generator of the High Court is working.
“During Court hours, the High Court has suffered a complete power failure. The generator is also not working. There are no lights. The air heating unit (AHU) is also not functional,” the single-page order issued to the Jammu Kashmir government reads.
“It is pathetic and unbelievable that this is the condition of Srinagar Wing of the High Court of High Court of J&K and Ladakh. The power failure has taken place at about 09:45 am and has still not been restored when this order is passed at about 11.28 am. The matter has gone from bad to worse.”
The order further regrets: “There is a permanent solution that is required. This Court requests the Chief Secretary of the Union Territory to pass necessary orders to solve this problem forthwith. The solution may vary from having a separate power line to the High Court which does not experience any downtime and also supported by generators of such capacity which can power the entire High Court and also the air heating unit without interruption in the event of the dedicated power supply to the High Court fails.”
The copy of the order has been served to the Chief Secretary and the bench will take up the issue again on February 21, 2024.
Despite load shedding and other weather-related issues, Kashmir is facing serious failure in power supply. Last night, most of the city was without power.