A genuine uprise

Sir,
Our erstwhile State of J & K which has now assumed the status of a union territory has witnessed significant changes in the recent past at almost all levels of administrative and political setup. These changing dimensions have no doubt led to the transformation, creation, rechristening as well as enlargement of the role and responsibility of social and political entities including institutions and individuals. But on the other side some unwarranted changes have transgressed, terminated, and curtailed the participation of genuine stakeholders who had a legitimate right to continue with the job assigned. One such class is legal fraternity which has lost one of its important assignment of registration of documents after the Government decided to take over the registration powers from judicial officers and vested those powers with the executive authorities, consequently leading to denial of engagement of an advocate by the parties to the registration and depriving the lawyers of a professional assignment which they are reasonably entitled to carry on by way of their legal acumen.
It has almost been a month now that the lawyers are on strike with a hope that there would be a positive response from the Government to redress their grievances so that they will again serve the cause of litigants, who repose their trust and confidence upon them unhesitantly.
An administrative perspective could be entirely different from a common man’s view of accessing and assessing the things. The possibility of rendering assistance to a common man reduces when a new setup transposes the already established system because it becomes difficult to settle the conflicting claims between the two institutions, which arise during the course of their working. It has now become the immediate concern of the government to arrive at some viable solution regarding the issue of registration powers to be vested again with the judicial officers , so that the common people who have been the worst sufferers due to ongoing agitation would be able to access courts & lawyers who not only owe a duty to the court or to the client but duty towards their profession as well, are again persuaded to assist the institution of justice to the best of their ability.
Surekha Bhat Kaw
Advocate

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