NL Correspondent
Jammu, Dec 04
Lawyers, who are protesting the J-K government's decision to divest judicial courts of powers to register documents related to immovable properties, on Wednesday went on a hunger strike. Members of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association (JKHCBA) have been on an indefinite strike for over a month against the decision.The token hunger strike began today after a decision to continue the ongoing agitation was unanimously taken at the association's general house meeting, the organisation's president, Abhinav Sharma, told reporters here.Judicial work in the high court and its subordinate courts in most parts of the Jammu region remain hit since November 1 due to the strike by the lawyers, who are demanding a roll back of the order.The JKHCBA-Jammu held the meeting at the conference hall of the district court complex in Janipur here. The lawyers are staging the sit-in at the high court complex.”The strike will go on and we are going to intensify it further till the power to register various documents is restored back to the judicial magistrates,” Sharma said. On October 23, the state administrative council (SAC) headed by then Governor Satya Pal Malik accorded sanction to the creation of a new department, under the overall administrative control of the revenue department, to provide hassle-free and speedy services to citizens for registration of documents pertaining to immovable properties. The documents include those related to sale, gift, mortgage, lease and bequest, among others. Earlier, the revenue department was involved in only issuing documents such as the ”Fard Intikhab” (authentication of property with reference to original record) and cost estimation of land on the ground of which registry of the same was being done by judicial officers. Last week at a conference, Union Minister Jitendra Singh while referring to the demands raised by different sections, including the lawyers, said “we are not going to succumb because there will be no end to it if one demand is met.”
