The members of the District Bar Association, Jalandhar, started taking part in voting on Monday morning to select the site for the new judicial complex, lawyers’ chambers and mini secretariat. The voting commenced at 9 AM and will continue till 4:30 PM at the District Bar Association premises. The Bar Association has also declared the day as a ‘No Work Day.’All members of the District Bar Association have been sent across messages to exercise their voting rights.They are being given a ballot paper containing the names of five proposed sites. The sites are the current Judicial Complex, Civil Lines, Kot Kalan village, back side of Bath Castle, Bhagwanpur village, near Wonderland, Pholriwal village adjoining Beas Satsang Ghar, and Nangal Shama village on Hoshiarpur Road.Every member has been asked to indicate the first two preferences marking them as ‘1’ and ‘2’. DBA President Aditya Jain and Secretary Rohit Gambhir have constituted a voting management committee.The committee includes Balwinder Singh Lucky (former President), Sanjeev Bansal, Manmohan Sharma, Satnam Singh Hundal, Tejinder Singh Dhaliwal, Preetpal Singh, OP Kangniwal, Rajeev Kohli (all former secretaries), Sanjeev Kumar Adhikari, Gurbachan Lal Gagneja, Tajinder Kumar Badan, Madhu Rachna and Parveen Bala Kanth.The issue of shifting of judicial court complex and lawyers’ chambers to a new location got raked up in view of shortage of space in the existing complex. While initially the voting was scheduled to take place on June 2, it got extended to July 20 in view of non-availability of several members because of summer vacation.The Building Committee under the chairmanship of Justice Harsimran Singh Sethi, Punjab and Haryana High Court had held a meeting on May 6 regarding construction of the new judicial complex. The committee felt that the land which was proposed by one group was being opposed by the other. It was decided that the Deputy Commissioner Jalandhar, District and Sessions Judge, Jalandhar, and members of the District Bar Association, Jalandhar, shall sit together and identify a piece of land so that the proposal could be taken forward. “If no consensus is reached, the committee will proceed with the already identified land of 50 acres in Nangal Shama and Chohakan villages ahead of Rama Mandi,” it was decided.During the course, discussions were held on alternate locations in city’s periphery. Majority of the members were also of the opinion to construct a new multi-storey building at the existing site owing to its locational advantages being near the district administrative complex, police commissionerate, bus stand and railway station.”Any shifting will cause inconvenience to litigants, staff and advocates,” they had opined.Some members expressed willingness to move but with a rider that the DC’s court, labour court, divisional commissioner’s court, consumer court and juvenile court would also be shifted to the new complex. Majority of the members had objections to shifting to 66-feet road or Nangal Shama since both the locations have issues of traffic congestion and accessibility. Finally, to resolve the issue, voting was planned.