It has been nearly six months since the construction of the new Sector-43 judicial complex has come to a standstill. With the Central Government yet to release the amount sanctioned for the complex, the construction of the project will get delayed by more than a year. The scheduled date for the completion of the project was October 7 this year but no progress has been made since April this year.

It’s been almost three years since the foundation stone of the new judicial complex was laid down by the UT Administrator in January 2007. It is not for the first time that the Central Government is responsible for the inordinate delay.

For, right from the scratch the Central Government had been delaying the progress of the project on one pretext or the other.

It took the Ministry of Law and Justice more than one and half year to grant sanction of the administrative approval for the project. Not even a single brick was laid till July 8, 2008, when the ministry finally gave the nod. The budget of the court complex is Rs 18.6 crore but till date only Rs 2 crore has been released by the Centre.

The District Bar Association is also bearing the brunt of the delay as the construction of the lawyers’ chambers also stand delayed on account of the non-release of funds. It is pertinent to mention here that another dispute with regard to the project cropped up on August 8, 2008 when the Ministry of Homes Affairs in an official communiqué informed the UT Administration that any escalation in the cost of the project beyond the budget (Rs 18.60 crore) will be borne by the UT Administration.

... contd.