JAMMU: A Division Bench of Jammu and Kashmir High Court, comprising First Puisne Judge Justice Ramalingam Sudhakar and Justice B.S. Walia, on Tuesday issued notices to Union Home Secretary, Vice-Chairman National Disaster Management Committee, Chief Secretary J&K and Financial Commissioner Revenue to file response and directed Registry to list PIL in the week commencing from June 27, 2016.
The directions came in a Public Interest Litigation (PIL). During the course of hearing, Advocate Munish Sharma submitted that few days ago a news report was published claiming that our state has become vulnerable to earthquake of abnormal magnitude and may cause huge loss to life and property and this news has cause lot of concern to all the residents of the state of Jammu and Kashmir and earthquakes are one of the worst natural disasters which have caused destruction of human life and property in the history of mankind.
“Their gravity is further compounded as the occurrence is unpredictable and with all the advancement in science, we are still groping in the darkness regarding the time of occurrence”, the petition stated.
“Accordingly disaster and hazard profile of J&K, drawn by Department of Ecology Environment and Remote Sensing Govt of J&K, our state falls in the most vulnerable zones, Zone-IV and Zone-V. The Kashmir valley falls more or less in Zone-V and Ladakh region and Jammu region fall in zone-IV”, Advocate Sharma submitted.