STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: To look after daily affairs of Bar during ongoing time of crisis due to COVID-19, till elections are held, the Election Committee of J&K High Court Bar Association Jammu (JKHCBAJ) has decided to constitute a presidium with Ved Raj Wazir, Senior Advocate & Former President as Chairman. It was stated by Advocate R K Kotwal, Chairman Election Committee JKHCBAJ, while addressing a press conference in Jammu on Tuesday.
Giving further details, Kotwal said that Senior Advocates D K Khajuria, P S Dutta, D S Saini, Surinder Singh, M K Bhardwaj, Sunil Sethi, M A Goni, P N Raina, R K Kotwal, Radha Sharma, Mandeep Reen and Pawan Manni will be the members of the presidium.
He further said that Election Committee JKHCBAJ tried to convene a General House Meeting, but permission to convene General House Meeting in the court premises was declined by the Registrar Judicial, High Court of J&K, Jammu, as well as by the Principal District and Sessions Judge, Jammu. “In these circumstances the Election Committee, after thorough deliberations amongst themselves and majority of members, decided to constitute the Presidium keeping in view the difficulties faced by lawyers’ community as a whole. As per the opinion of majority of the members of the association the election is not possible unless the restrictions of physical appearance of the advocates are lifted by High Court,” he added.
“Election Committee has already taken charge of office of the JKHCBAJ with effect from, October 23, 2020, as authorised by the outgoing team, who had demitted their office by then. Therefore, the Election Committee was left with no option but to constitute the Presidium for running the affairs of JKHCBAJ during critical situation,” he asserted.
Referring to constitution of Election Committee, Kotwal informed that after outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, outgoing office bearers of JKHCBAJ could not commence any sort of election process due to lockdown. “By virtue of various circulars issued by High Court of J&K, from time to time, in adherence to the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs, the physical appearance of the advocates in the High Court as well in subordinate courts was restricted, which is still in force till. As such, to initiate election process, an Election Committee, headed by me, R K Kotwal as Chairman was constituted with Senior Advocate Surinder Kour, Advocates Kishore Kumar, C M Sharma, Rakesh Chargotra, Vikas Sharma, Daljeet Singh Manhas and Ajay Singh Kotwal as its members,” he added.
