Your assessment is not correct, consider giving 15 acre for expansion: HC to Chandigarh admn

The Punjab and Haryana high court has asked the Chandigarh administration to consider giving 15 acres of land in Sarangpur for high court expansion projects.
The high court bench of acting chief justice GS Sandhawalia and justice Lapita Banerji said the assessment made earlier and asking the administration to give 14.86 acres was correct. “We come to the conclusion because the space would also be required for the offices of advocate general(s) of Punjab and Haryana as they are also facing immense space crunch on account of the storage of judicial record to be maintained that could also be redressed by giving them some space out of the area which is liable to be identified or allotted,” the court said.
The infrastructural deficiencies came before the court in a plea by Punjab and Haryana High Court Employees Association secretary Vinod Dhatterwal, seeking implementation of the holistic development plan, which envisages setting up of multi-storey buildings to cater to the requirement of additional space.
On January 19, the high court had directed the administration to allot 15 acres in Sarangpur for future projects.
However, in a letter written to the Union ministry of home affairs (MHA), UT had suggested that for the expansion plans given by the high court, 8.5 acres of land would be “justified”. When the contents of this letter came to fore, high court had sought an affidavit from the UT adviser on the issue.
The adviser, Rajeev Verma, has told court that the administration is ready and willing to ensure that all additional space requirements of the court are dealt with at the “highest priority”. He also suggested that the high court can be offered another plot of 8.5 acres in Sarangpur as an alternative site. The contiguous piece of 8.5 acres will be able to accommodate a construction of more than 4,62,000 square feet against the demand of holistic development plan of about 3.21 lakh square feet, the adviser submitted.
Referring to minutes of meeting of the stakeholders held last month, the high court observed that the super area for holistic development plan for the high court was originally 3,21,000 square feet approximately, but now the deficit carpet area in square feet comes to 4,29,302.
The Bar association claims that as on date, a total 5,98,236.75 square feet additional space is required and for next 20-30 years, requirement would be 10,46,914.31 square feet, adding that the requirement for the administrative and judicial branches of the offices of both the advocate general(s) has been estimated at 92,617 square feet and 87,006 square feet while details of area required for offices of the UT and Government of India counsels have not been calculated.
Now posting the matter for April 18, the high court has asked the adviser to file an affidavit considering its suggestion of giving 15 acres in Sarangpur for expansion projects.